Endangered ferrets released at Fort Belknap

Black-footed ferrets were released into the bison conservation area at Fort Belknap Indian Reservation Thursday.

The ferrets have been decimated by human expansion and farming, as well as a plague that lowered both the numbers of ferrets and their main prey: prairie dogs.

“The fate of the ferret is very linked with the fate of the prairie dog,” said John Hughes, a wildlife biologist from Wellington, Colo.

The black-footed ferret is very, if not completely, dependant upon prairie dogs for survival. The ferrets live underground, in burrows made by prairie dogs.

According to the Black-footed Ferret Recovery Implementation Team’s website, the ferrets spend 90 percent of their time underground in abandoned prairie dog colonies and one ferret may eat over 100 prairie dogs in a year. Around 90 percent of their diet is made up of prairie dog.

Hughes works with the ferrets under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center.

The ferrets have been on the endangered species list since 1967 and were announced as extinct twice. Today, approximately 500 of the animals are in existence in the wild. According to Hughes, they are considered the most endangered North American animal.

Of the 32 ferrets released at Fort Belknap, around 60 percent of them were males and 40 percent of them were females. The reasons for the higher number of males is that one male can breed with several females and their fatality rate is about double than that of the female, according to Hughes. About 30 of them were “kits,” less than 2 years old.

Hughes, under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, conducts about seven or eight releases of the ferrets every year, depending on the availability of suitable locations.

The World Wildlife Fund, Defenders of Wildlife and environmental agencies at Fort Belknap were involved with this initiative.

The last attempt at releasing the ferrets was in 1997 and 1998. This batch of ferrets was not able to survive due to the sylvatic plague, which is a form of the bubonic plague that wiped out 25 million humans in the 1300s.

The plague is carried by fleas and prairie dogs and black-footed ferrets are extremely susceptible to it. The ferrets can contract the plague from disease-carrying fleas or by eating infected prairie dogs.

“Even if you release vaccinated ferrets, the disease has taken out the prairie dogs,” Hughes said.

The colonies of prairie dogs have jumped back at Fort Belknap, according to Hughes, in part through the persistence of the animals and the attempt to eradicate the disease through dustings of their colonies.

Hughes said the ferrets “will probably require supplementation in the next few years to keeps the numbers up” at Fort Belknap.

Kylie Paul and John Proctor, of the Defenders of Wildlife, said their organization came out a couple of times during the summer to prep the area for the introduction of the ferrets.

“We have a lot of hope for these ferrets,” Proctor said.

Mike Fox, councilman of Fort Belknap tribal council, released the first ferret of the new 32 into a prairie dog burrow around 5 p.m. Thursday.

“Thanks to the people who worked so hard for this day to come,” Fox said before the release. “We pray these creatures have a good life.”