Last night, myself and two others from Landmark had the privilege to work with Randy Matchett of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (the same biologist who runs the prairie dog studies) on his 20-year study on one of North America's most endangered mammals: the black-footed ferret.
There she is! She was very curious and came right up to the GoPro and our feet! She wouldn't let her baby, who was likely born in April or May, come out and take a look at the crowd of speechless humans. (photo: Jonah Gula).
The black-footed ferret is a small weasel that feeds on prairie dogs. Therefore, their habitat of choice is that of grasslands, particularly prairie dog towns. The black-footed ferret was on the verge of extinction in 1987 (only 18 wild ferrets!), and in 1994 reintroduction efforts began in Montana. Randy has worked on this reintroduction project for over 20 years and unfortunately the reintroduction process hasn't been easy. As I've mentioned in a previous blog entry, prairie dogs have had an outbreak of the plague which has greatly affected their population. Not only are BFF's prey numbers dwindling, but the BFFs themselves are susceptible to the disease.
So last night we pulled an all-nighter and drove around a large designated area in the Charles M. Russell Wildlife Refuge with a spotlight attached to our truck, looking for these small endangered weasels. Well guess what?! At 1:54am, we spotted a mother and her kit in a burrow (and we were the only ones to have found any last night!) After following the procedure Randy taught us (the ferret hissed at me because I had my hand in her burrow, oops), we were able to determine that the mother had been released last season from Randy's reintroduction project. Nonetheless, there is at least one adult female ferret and she has at least one kit, meaning there's a male out there somewhere too!
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