A wildlife biologists says endangered black-footed ferrets have been spotted on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in South Dakota, raising hopes that a new wild colony has been found.
The black-footed ferret…the only ferret native to North America…was thought extinct until a single colony was found in Wyoming 30 years ago, but Standing Rock Sioux tribal biologist Barry Betts tells the Sioux Falls Argus Leader (https://argusne.ws/UuIF0w) he thinks the adult ferret and two juveniles photographed near Mobridge may be the second native wild colony.
The U-S Fish and Wildlife Service began reintroducing ferrets into the wild in the early 1990s, including on U-S Forest Service land in the Conata Basin adjacent to Badlands National Park and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, and Pete Gober…coordinator of the national ferret recovery program…believes the Standing Rock ferrets have simply migrated there from another site in South Dakota.
Gober says researchers are always encouraged by the possibility of a long-lost colony of ferrets, but in over 3 decades of searching in South Dakota, none has ever panned out. He thinks these ferrets probably came from a release site on the Cheyenne River Reservation.
Betts says he’s agreed to disagree with Gober on the point, with both men waiting for the Standing Rock tribe to trap some of the ferrets and draw blood for DNA testing while checking for the chips implanted in some released animals.
Both Gober and Betts say the benefits would be enormous if there really is a new wild colony. That’s because all the existing black-footed ferrets…both those released into the wild and those still in captivity…are all from the single colony found near Meteetsee, Wyoming.
A new colony would allow researchers to add a new source of genetic material to diversify the ferret’s genome, giving the species a better chance of adapting and surviving in the wild.
Black-footed ferrets were among the first animals placed on the federal endangered species list in 1967. A captive breeding program has been successful, but although 3,000 have been released into the wild at 19 different sites, federal wildlife officials estimate there are fewer than 500 breeding adults now in the wild.
South Dakota alone had about 500 breeding adults in 2008, but since then plague has hit both the ferrets and the prairie dogs that make up the bulk of their diet. Only about 150-to-200 breeding adults are now thought to be in the state.
The Fish and Wildlife Service announced a proposed new interagency “safe harbor” plan that encourages landowners, tribes and state agencies to allow ferret reintroduction on their land and refrain from shooting or poisoning prairie dogs there in return for easing rules to kill nuisance prairie dogs elsewhere on their property.
Safe harbor participants would also be released from liability under the Endangered Species Act with “no future regulatory restrictions…imposed or commitments required” unless the landowners are deliberately killing ferrets. Public comment on the plan is being taken through January 18th.
On the state level, the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks has a program that pays ranchers in some counties to preserve prairie dog habitat and to refrain from killing prairie dogs.
As for the Standing Rock ferrets…first spotted Halloween night…Barry Betts says the search has switched to daytime surveys because it’s easier to see the telltale trenches formed in the snow when ferrets hunt prairie dogs.
He’s hoping to land some federal grants to help the tribe develop a management plan, and he wants to relocate the ferrets to a safer prairie dog town…saying there’s “a lot of work ahead” in the next two years.
