WWF: Tuesday is 25th Anniversary of Black-Footed Ferret’s Rediscovery, America’s Most Endangered Mammal
Tuesday, September 26th, 2006Twenty-five years ago on Tuesday, Sept. 26, a Wyoming ranch dog brought a creature home that his owner couldn’t identify. It was a black-footed ferret, an animal that had been officially declared extinct by the federal government after the last known individual died in captivity.Today there are between 600-700 ferrets living in the wild in 10 locations across the West. By nearly all measurements, the animal’s reintroduction to the wild has been a stunning accomplishment. However, after millions invested in its recovery and with the goal of moving it from “endangered” to “threatened” in sight, pressure from private interest groups and opponents of wildlife conservation programs threaten to unravel hard won gains.
On Monday, the federal government proposed changing rules to allow poisoning across three publicly owned national grasslands to kill prairie dogs, a species ferrets depend on entirely for survival.
“At this anniversary, there is cause to celebrate and cause for grave concern,” said Steve Forrest with World Wildlife Fund and an expert on black-footed ferrets. “I personally watched this species go from just 18 individuals in 1985 to the hundreds in the wild today and now I may watch numbers drop again if this poisoning plan is enacted.”
The proposed poisoning affects the Buffalo Gap and Fort Pierre national grasslands in South Dakota and Oglala National Grassland in Nebraska. Buffalo Gap is home to the Conata Basin, the site of the world’s largest and only successful wild population of ferrets.
“Black-footed ferrets are a real American success story,” continued Forrest. “Thanks to the protection of the Endangered Species Act and the hard work of many federal, tribal, and state biologists, zoos and private land owners ferrets are still with us but it’s an open question whether our children will be able to say the same.”
September 26 is the 25th anniversary of the rediscovery of the ferrets.
The poisoning would also affect endangered swift foxes, burrowing owls, eagles, hawks and other species that live in prairie dog burrows and/or prey upon them in the Buffalo Gap and Fort Pierre national grasslands in South Dakota and Oglala National Grassland in Nebraska.
“Under this proposal, the forest service could poison every prairie dog on three federal grasslands,” said Steve Forrest, program officer for WWF’s Northern Great Plains program and an expert on black-footed ferrets. “Ferrets rely on prairie dogs 100 percent so the impact could be devastating. This could be the unraveling of 25 years of recovery efforts for ferrets.”
For more information on WWF, visit http://www.worldwildlife.org
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