Thirty years ago, the Black-Footed Ferret was discovered in eastern Wyoming, after being considered extinct for some time.
A captive breeding program to repopulate the prairie mammal started 20 years ago by Dr. Dean Biggins of the U-S Geological Survey and Colorado State University.
Today, Black-footed Ferrets have been released at 20 reintroduction sites in the Great Plains, including Logan County, Kansas, where the project has made some landowners very unhappy.
U-S Fish and Wildlife Service Biologist Dan Mulhern surveys the still-endangered animal twice a year. Prairie dogs are the ferrets’ main food source.
Some Logan County ranchers consider the prairie dog a nuisance, and want to poison them, but a judge’s 2010 ruling prevents the county from poisoning prairie dogs on a site where ferrets — who prey primarily on prairie dogs — have been reintroduced. The Logan County Commission has appealed.
Mulhern’s plan to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the ferret’s rediscovery met with some resistance in Oakley, where three locales denied access for a presentation.
The FHSU Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays offered its venue. Nearly 1,700 people, including students from as far away as Chanute, from kindergarten to college-age, participated in Monday’s “Black-Footed Ferret Day.”
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