The black footed ferret is a highly endangered wild relative of the pet ferret, and it was once thought to be extinct. Thanks to the efforts of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the breeding programs at several zoos and government breeding operations, the ferret is rebounding.

Info On The Black Footed Ferret

The black footed ferret is a little longer but lighter than the domesticated ferret, measuring about 24 inches long and weighing less than two and a half pounds. They have yellow bodies with black points on their feet and tails, a dark brown head and a black mask across their eyes. These natives of North America once had a range that spanned the Great Plains, from the Rocky Mountains through North and South Dakota, as far north as parts of Saskatchewan and down across Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and into Mexico.

Causes Of The Decline

There are a few causes behind the decline of the once huge black footed ferret population. A disease called the sylvatic plague killed a great number of ferrets, but the main cause of the problem came from farmers and ranchers destroying the prairie dog population across the plains. These ferrets preyed on prairie dogs and lived in old prairie dog burrows. When the prairie dogs were wiped out, the ferrets vanished as well.

Thought To Be Extinct

One of the first species to be listed as endangered back in 1967, the black footed ferret groups kept dying off. A few were seen in South Dakota in the 1970s but they died out too. Scientists believed the ferret was extinct. It wasn’t until 1981, when a dog killed a ferret in Wyoming, that the last ferret group in the wild was found. Several of the ferrets from that group were captured and used to start a breeding program to help rebuild the species.

Reintroduced to Other Areas

Today, black footed ferret populations have been reintroduced in Mexico, Utah, Montana, Colorado, and South Dakota. The groups are breeding, doing especially well in South Dakota. The reintroduction in Janos, Mexico is particularly important. The largest healthy prairie dog colony left on the continent, over half a million animals, lives in Janos. Replacing the ferret as a natural predator to the prairie dogs helps restore the area’s proper ecology and provides the best opportunity for the ferrets to thrive in the wild.

Government Targets

The United States government hopes to be able to count at least fifteen hundred black footed ferrets, still one of the rarest animals in North America, by 2010. If the population of these ferrets continues to improve, it may one day be listed only as threatened, rather than endangered. For ferret lovers, either of these listings is far better than “extinct.”