[BIRDS CHIRPING]
[DUCKS QUACKING] USFWS logo
Today I'm coming to you from windy Carr, Colorado,
at the National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center.
[MUSIC PLAYING] USFWS Conservation Connect
Hi, everyone.
Welcome to the US Fish and Wildlife Services Conservation
Connect, where we connect you guys
to awesome careers, exciting wildlife, and new technology
that conservation professionals use to study and protect
wildlife.
Today I'm here with US Fish and Wildlife Services Education
Specialist Kimberly Fraser.
Kimberly, you have an amazing place.
I'm seeing beautiful prairie in the background.
We've got prairie dogs popping out of their holes
just behind us.
Some are yelling at us.
Thank you for having us here in Colorado.
Well, welcome to the National Black-footed Ferret
Conservation Center.
It's a pleasure to have you here.
Can you talk to me about how you got interested
specifically in a career working with black-footed ferrets?
Absolutely.
Well, you know, I was a child that loved nature.
I loved getting outside.
And an opportunity came up to volunteer right here
at the Ferret Center.
And I took that opportunity.
And then a job came along, and I applied for it, and was hired.
And so, I think it's really important
to understand that if you volunteer,
it can lead to having a job of doing something
that you really love.
And I love black-footed ferrets.
I can tell.
Absolutely can tell.
Can you talk to me about some fun and interesting facts,
what you find fascinating about black-footed ferrets?
Black-footed ferrets have the longest canine teeth
of any species in the world in ratio to their skull.
And not only that, they're nocturnal.
They're solitary.
And they live their whole lives on
these large, beautiful expanses of prairie.
Kimberly, I know the black-footed ferret was once
thought to be completely extinct.
Can you tell us how we brought them back?
And why they're so critically endangered still today?
Yes, well being a native species of the Great Plains,
habitat loss happened around the turn of the century, 1900s.
And 98% of the prairie was plowed up.
So that was loss of habitat.
Then they're highly susceptible to diseases on the plains.
And also their food resource, prairie dogs,
there can be a problem with keeping enough
on the landscape.
So, Chelsea.
Here we are outside one of the breeding room doors,
and guess what's behind the door?
Are there some ferrets?
They're a lot of ferrets behind there.
In fact, it's just about lunchtime.
Would you like to go in and help feed them?
That sounds awesome.
OK, great.
But first we have to put on some booties, and gloves,
and a mask.
OK.
Does this actually help protect us from the ferrets?
No, actually, it protects the ferrets from us.
We don't want to take in any diseases that
might effect them.
Got it.
We're ready.
Let's go.
This is exciting.
You can't tell right now, but these
are huge smiles on our faces.
Kimberly introduced me to Tyler, a biological technician
who's responsible for making sure the ferrets are fed daily.
Hi, Tyler.
Would you like to feed them?
I would love to help feed Dotty's kits.
I even met Dotty, one of the female ferrets
who had three kits, and I was given the opportunity
to find out just what ferret kits ate.
Now, I know we're not supposed to say wildlife is cute,
but these guys are cute.
Hamster.
Ground horse meat.
And rats.
Although these guys are too young now,
eventually all the kits will have a diet
exclusively of prairie dogs.
Kimberly, that was amazing.
I'm pretty sure that's going to go down as one
of the highlights of my career.
Thank you so much.
You are welcome.
I know we've said that black-footed ferrets are
critically endangered, but how exactly do we know that?
How do we know how many ferrets there are in a given area?
Well, when they're born at the Ferret
Center, when they reach a certain age
we give them a pit tag.
And we insert that in the back of their neck.
It's about the size of a piece of rice.
It's what your vet would give your cat or dog.
Like a microchip.
A microchip, yeah.
So the ferrets get a pit tag, and then they're
released into the wild.
And then we go out on what's called
spotlighting tours looking for those ferrets
with big spotlights.
And when we think we found one, we
run over to the burrow where they live.
And we take one of these, which is actually a ring reader.
It's a pit tag reader, but it's round
because it fits right over the top of the burrow system.
Makes sense.
Like that.
And when that ferret pops up, the pit tag
is read back at the truck, and we know
exactly who that ferret is.
This is incredible because it's so non-invasive.
The ferret pops up, you don't have to capture it.
You don't have to harm it in any way, touch it in any way,
and you've got your data and information right there.
We've got the data information of who it is,
where they were born, everything about that one ferret.
Awesome.
Kimberly, can you talk to us.
The students watching us, I know they're in love, as I
am with black-footed ferrets.
What are some things they can do to help them?
It's a native species.
It belongs here in North America.
And I always like to tell students
to learn as much as you can about our native species.
They belong to us as Americans.
And it's just important to know what
we have here in our backyards.
Kimberly, I can't begin to thank you
enough for allowing all of us to get an inside scoop of seeing
black-footed ferrets, seeing the kits, watching the feeding.
This has been incredible for us to see.
Well, thank you for coming.
For all of you young biologists out
there, be sure to check out more information
about these amazing creatures.
You can check out BlackFootedFerret.org
for more information, and share it
with your friends and family.
There actually may be opportunities
to volunteer at your local National Wildlife
Refuge, your nature preserve, or local park.
We'll see you guys next time, on a not so windy place,
with the US Fish and Wildlife Services Conservation Connect.