FORT COLLINS, Colo.—Federal officials have announced this season’s first births in the program attempting to rebuild the population of the black-foot ferret, North America’s most endangered mammal.
A 2-year-old ferret gave birth to kits March 24 at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service center north of Fort Collins, one of the facilities where the ferrets are bred and prepared for release in the wild.
Spokeswoman Sarah Bexell said Monday that biologists don’t know how many kits were born because they don’t want to disturb them for a while.
About 350 to 450 ferrets are born each year in federal facilities and a handful of zoos. The Fish and Wildlife Service releases about 200 to 225 ferrets yearly to 18 sites in the United States and one in Mexico to restore the animal once thought extinct.
The ferrets born in captivity go through a kind of biological boot camp for at least 30 days before they’re released. They are placed in pens with prairie dog colonies to see if they can capture the rodents, their main prey.
Bexell said ferrets considered genetically important are kept in the breeding program. She said there were an estimated 800 ferrets in the wild last fall.
Several of the animals die during the winter, so biologists expect the total to drop to roughly 500 this spring.
Once abundant across the West, ferrets began disappearing at the turn of the last century because of disease and eradication of prairie dog colonies. Wildlife experts thought the ferret was extinct until a small group was found in 1981 near Meeteetse in northern Wyoming.
To save the species, the last 18 ferrets were trapped between 1985 and 1987 and bred in captivity.
The nocturnal black-footed ferret, a relative of the mink and weasel, weighs about 1 1/2 pounds and is about 18 inches long. It’s tan with a brownish-black, raccoon-like face mask and has black feet and a black-tipped tail.
Captive-bred ferrets have been released in plains states, including Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas and Colorado. Environmental groups filed a protest when federal oil and gas leases were approved in northwestern Colorado, where ferrets were released.
Last summer, the Interior Board of Land Appeals overturned some of the challenged leases.
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On the Net: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Black-footed Ferret:
