By some counts the black-footed ferret is the most endangered animal in the United State. So the fact that ferret spotters have spotted fifteen of the beasties in Kansas is reasonable grounds for celebration; a massive plague sweeping Dakota is not so good; but an artificial breeding programme in Washington brings back some light.
First though, the good news from Kansas: “I was extremely pleased finding the four families,” Dan Mulhearn, a US Fish and Wildlife Service biologist in Kansas told the Hays Daily News. “My ultimate goal was to try to document reproduction.”
Last December 24 adult ferrets were released in Kansas and the fact Mulhearn and his colleagues spotted young mustelids means that “for the first time in more than 50 years, the state can lay claim to wild-born black-footed ferrets on Kansas soil” says the paper. In a second story the News reports that Mulhearn has asked for 50 more ferrets this year to release, but he’s doubtful that will happen.
One of the reasons for that doubt is the plague: We’re not in Kansas anymore; we’re in South Dakota…
According to AP:
The deadly disease sylvatic plague was discovered in May in a huge prairie dog town in the Conata Basin. The black-tailed prairie dog is the main prey of ferrets, and the disease quickly killed up to a third of the area’s 290 ferrets along with prairie dogs.
The summer has temporarily put the kybosh on disease spread, but there could be serious ferret related fallout. “It has the capacity to take out more ferret habitat than anything we’ve run up against, and do it in such a short order,” Scott Larson, another USFWS biologist told AP.
A happier tale is related by WTOP Radio:
Two black-footed ferrets were born in June at the National Zoo’s Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Va. But what makes the births unusual is that the ferrets’ fathers have been dead for at least eight years.
…
“We wanted to use frozen semen as a way to input gene diversity into the population,” National Zoo Reproductive Scientist Dr. JoGayle Howard says.
Image: USFWS