Black foot ferret in the wild

The campaign to combat the prairie dogs by settlers who considered them thus competing with the destroyers of crops and livestock in pastures made use of all manner of poisons from cyanide, strychnine and other poisons, gases, dynamite , shot and plows to destroy their underground cities.

In some states the prairie dogs were reduced by 99%. The decline of black footed ferret must therefore be attributed to the disappearance of its main source of food, destruction of its habitat, and the fact that certainly many ferrets eat prairie dogs that had been poisoned and died in their turn.

The last sighting of a living ferret in Wyoming dates back to 1965and the last known population studied in South Dakota, disappeared mysteriously in 1975. The few and only black footed ferrets in captivity in a research centre in Patuxent, Maryland died some years later. Since 1978 it was feared that the species was extinct.

But in September 1981, Lucille Hogg of Meeteetse, Wyoming, embalmed an animal killed by his dog. The embalmer suspected it was a black-footed ferret, and turned to the Fisheries and Wildlife Service of the United States confirmed his assumption.

The species was rediscovered and shortly after that a farmer saw his dog chasing a ferret who disappeared into a den of prairie dogs. He led the men of the Fisheries and Wildlife Service to the place on 29 October 1981, captured the ferret and fitted it with a collar and transitter.

Then a “Great Western Ferret Hunt” was started by the Fisheries and Wildlife Service, The Department of Wyoming Game and Fish and private researchers, with financial support from the National Wildlife Federation, the Zoological Society of New York and others.

22 ferrets were discovered in the winter of 1981-82, and the following year 58, in late August 1983 they discovered 88, 10 of which were fitted with radio collars. The last campaign, in August 1984, still in the area of Meeteetse, found 118 black footed ferrets, an increase of 34%.

The search is now on for other ferrets in several remote areas of the West, and a captive breeding program has begun to reintroduce the ferrets into other parts of their former range. To restore the species to a level, with a certain guarantee of survival would need 500 individuals.
The black footed ferret is protected by the laws of the United States, and the towns of prairie dogs can not be destroyed if they are not “free from ferrets. The ferret is strictly protected by CITES.