After years of efforts, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) confirmed that black-footed ferrets, an endangered species, have successfully bred at a reintroduction site in southeast Colorado.
"While it’s not the first time black-footed ferrets have reproduced in the wild in Colorado, it’s a huge success for the species and speaks to the power behind science and partnerships in wildlife conservation," CPW wrote in an Instagram post.
They are considered the most endangered mammal in North America, CPW said.
CPW Terrestrial Biologist Jonathan Reitz has spent years preparing for this. This summer, he documented the first successful reproduction of the animals at the May Ranch, owned by CPW Commissioner Dallas May, CPW said. Kits born in the wild have a much higher survival rate than those raised in captivity, Reitz said.
May, a longtime rancher and conservationist, said he has learned about the plight of the black-footed ferrets since he was a child.
The last official record of a black-footed ferret in Colorado was in 1943 near Buena Vista, according to CPW. The animals were one of the first listed under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. But even with extra protections, the population dwindled. By the late 1970s, experts believed they were completely extinct.
“I had been looking at the black-footed ferret situation since I was in grade school, and when I learned they had become extinct, it felt like a great failure in our society,” May said. “It was a great victory later, in 1981, when the first one was discovered in Wyoming and we learned they actually weren’t extinct."
A small population of ferrets were found near Meeteetse, Wyoming, but their health had been heavily impacted by canine distemper and sylvatic plague. In 1986 and 1987, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) captured the 18 remaining individuals to try to breed them in captivity and preserve the species, according to CPW. That small group became the source for "all subsequent captive breeding and recovery efforts," according to CPW’s Black-Footed Ferret Management Plan.
CPW teamed up with USFWS and other groups to restore the animals to their native habitats.
They were first reintroduced to Colorado in 2001 at Wolf Creek near Rangely, however, those groups succumbed to a plague outbreak by 2010. Three years later, CPW began an Eastern Plains reintroduction effort, with the release of 300 ferrets at six sites over a few years. CPW observed the first natural-born kit on the Eastern Plains in 2015.
Today, Colorado is home to six reintroduction sites, including the May Ranch, and more than 500 of the animals have been released.
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Black-footed ferret recovery efforts began on the May Ranch in 2021. That year, CPW and May began mapping the 20,000-acre ranch to see if it was feasible and if there was ample prey available. With the success of reproducing pairs, CPW and USFWS will release 15 more kits on the ranch this month.
Colorado is one of eight states involved in black-footed ferrets' recovery through reintroduction. Years of work with private landowners in Colorado is critical to its success, CPW said.
“The majority of our black-tailed prairie dog population is found on private lands,” Reitz said. “So that really means if we’re going to do something sustainable for ferrets, we need projects on private lands. To have a landowner like Dallas May and his family recognize black-tailed prairie dogs are and should be a natural part of the ecosystem, that’s a very rare situation.”
Because predation by badgers and coyotes may limit black-footed ferret reintroduction, CPW is working to see how they can protect the newly reintroduced ferrets and buy them some time as they adjust to the new environment on properties like the Southern Plains Land Trust, which owns land designated for prairie wildlife and plants and has protected more than 56,000 acres.
“By keeping predators out for the first few months after release, we give the ferrets a chance to acclimate to their new environment,” Reitz said. “If this method shows promise, we may expand it to other properties.”
CPW biologists are also treating prairie dog colonies for plague-carrying fleas, which have collapsed both prairie dog and ferret colonies.
Black-footed ferrets were the first endangered species native to North America to ever be cloned, the USFWS announced in early 2021. Officials said all black-footed ferrets are descended from seven individuals, which has resulted in unique genetic challenges to recover the species. They believed cloning could help address significant genetic diversity and disease resilience barriers to support habitat conservation and reestablishment of additional populations in the wild.
Two more black-footed ferret clones were born in April.
The next survey of the May Ranch is scheduled for 2025.
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