Biologists release ferrets in Colorado wilderness

By Todd Malmsbury

Massadona, Colorado. A team of state and federal wildlife biologists has released eighteen black-footed ferrets into the wilderness. The release, the fifth to date this year in the region, was part of ongoing efforts to reintroduce the black-footed ferret to its historic rangeland nearly twenty years after the masked mammal was rescued from the brink of extinction.

Biologists from the Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management released three adult female ferrets and fifteen kits in the BLM Wolf Creek Management Area (WCMA), about thirty-five miles southeast of Dinosaur National Monument. The release site is in the remote White River region of northwest Colorado, where extensive prairie dog towns dot a dry, scrubby landscape.

The release brings to fifty-eight the number of black-footed ferrets that biologists have released in the area. Recent WCMA releases also included ten wild-born ferrets scientists brought to Colorado from Conata Basin in South Dakota, home of the largest self-sustaining black-footed ferret colony in the United States. The move between South Dakota and Colorado was the first interstate transfer of wild-born black-footed ferrets.

Biologists plan to return to the WCMA in early November to assess the well-being of recently released black-footed ferrets in order to learn how the mammals are faring in their new digs. The region is one of the few remaining areas in Colorado where biologists believe ferrets can make a comeback.

Wildlife biologists are hopeful that black-footed ferrets, nocturnal hunters, soon will reproduce and thrive in the area. The region is ideal ferret land. Prairie dog makes up about niney percent of the mammalÕs diet. In addition, black-footed ferrets inhabit prairie dog burrows with their young.

All of the black-footed ferrets re-leased in Colorado in recent years are descendants of the original seven ferrets discovered in Wyoming in the mid-1980s. Before the discovery, scientists believed the animal had become extinct. Federal wildlife officials are in the process of trying to establish ten self-sustaining black-footed ferret colonies across the plains states, the historic rangeland of the animal. Scientists are not sure what role the black-footed ferret might play in the survival of North AmericaÕs prairie land, but believe every link in the chain of life serves a purpose. P

Malmsbury is information officer for the Colorado Division of Wildlife.