Black-footed ferret

The “black-footed ferret is a rare North American mammal that is now extinct in the wild.

Adult male ferrets can reach a length of 63-64 cm including the tail. The coat body colour is a yellowish-beige color except for the face, throat and belly which are lighter. A mask of black hair across the face from one eye to eye and gives the animal an appearance of “bandits”.

Pure black or blackish brown, are the colours on the tip of the tail and the last section of the foot giving the ferret its name. Like other mustelids, the black-footed ferret has an anal gland that secretes a foul-smelling liquid.

Habits
In the language of the Sioux it is called the Pispiza etopta sapa or translated “the prairie dog with a black face.” The Indian name refers to the fact that they are common rodent-like marmots and widespread in North America.
Of mostly nocturnal habits depending on the ferret or prairie dog they occasionally eat other small mammals and birds. Its burrow is a tunnel linked to other prairie dog tunnels providing an ideal location to access various hunting grounds and their slim form allows them to chase rodents in the galleries.

Ferrets live in association with two species of prairie dogs, the black-tailed Cynomys ludovicianus and the white-tailed Cynomys leucurus. The black-tailed prairie dogs live in the plains where it rains and there is lush vegetation and there are higher densities of thousands of individuals per colony, while the dog’s white-tailed rarely exceed 100.

The black-footed ferret is better qualified to live with the black-tailed prairie dogs. Couplings take place in March-April. Gestation lasts 42-45 days, and in May-June 1 in 5 pups are born, soon to accompany their mother on hunts as the parent does not bring food into the burrow to weaned pups.

The ferret is native to the Old World and reached the current habitats via the land bridge of the Bering Strait during the Pleistocene. The oldest fossils are from Fairbanks in Alaska and are about 32,000 years ago and out of 12 discovered fossils six of them are outside the present distribution area of the ferret.

The species most similar to the black-footed ferret is the steppe polecat, especially its subspecies dell’Amur Mustela eversmanni amuriensis and it  resembles the Alaskan fossis very closely.The existence of this animal was discovered by the naturalist Audubon and the Reverend Bachman in 1851, when he got a skin from a hunter at Fort Laramie in Wyoming.

They spent more than 25 years looking for the animal and was beginning to doubt the existence of the species, when a second-footed ferret was discovered near Cheyenne black. Since then over 1000 ferrets have been recorded around almost all in short distances from each other.

In museums there are about 125 skins, skeletons and stuffed specimens. From sightings footed ferret lived in two Canadian provinces Alberta and Saskatchewan and in 12 of the United States, from North Dakota to Texas and Arizona, the same distribution area occupied by prairie dogs. Since 1899, half of the sightings were in South Dakota, one fourth in Wyoming and Montana. The last in Canada dates back to 1937.
Five Indian tribes, the Sioux, Black Foot, the Crow, the Cheyenne and Pawnee made use of ferrets in various ways, from food to religious rituals. The Black Feet of Montana hung furs of ermine and ferret on their heads. The Crow in Wyoming and Montana used the ferrets for their sacred tobacco pouches.

The 30 chapters of religious association with the cultivation of tobacco linked each to an animal ermine, otter, ferret, bison and others. It is impossible to determine now how many animals existed then of the black footed ferrets. But their use by Indians indicates a wide distribution.

The Naturalist E. T. Seton estimated that in the late nineteenth century, before poisoning by colonists there had to be more than 5 Billion in North America.

Large populations could exist amongst the sea of grass a habitat of their rodent prey.