For the first time in nearly thirty years, black-footed ferrets have been reintroduced to Arizona.
The creatures were all but wiped out by a disease known as the sylvatic plague, which scientists have now managed to control – so experts have given the predators another bid for survival in the Grand Canyon State.
The Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD) bred ten of the ferrets in captivity before releasing them into the Aubrey Valley area, an hour west of Flagstaff.
They learned to hunt and survive at a facility in Colorado before receiving vaccinations and being released into the wild.
The Arizona agency worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to figure out what drove the ferrets to extinction before finding a solution.
Black-footed ferrets have been nicknamed “little vampires” by wildlife workers because of their protruding canines and ability to hunt at night, much like the mythical creatures.
“We couldn’t start rebuilding this population without understanding ferret die-offs,” explains small mammal management specialist Holly Hicks.
Her team determined that Sylvatic plague also infected ferrets’ main prey, Gunnison’s prairie dogs.
For the first time in nearly thirty years, black-footed ferrets have been reintroduced to Arizona
Holly Hicks, a small mammal management specialist, led the project
The bacterial disease is transmitted by fleas and has resulted in the decline of more than 100 ferrets in Arizona since the early 2000s.
While the prairie dogs survived with the plague from year to year, the ferrets were extremely susceptible, even to low levels of the disease.
“It started to become clear that it was a prey base problem,” said Hicks. “So we transitioned to a disease treatment study in prairie dogs in 2020.”
Conservationists combat the disease using flea treatments containing the same active ingredient as those used in canine and feline medicine.
The ferrets are also chipped so that scientists can study them in the future.
All were released with a “small piece of prairie dog snack to send them on their way,” the AZGFD said.
Future controlled releases of ferrets are also planned for the next three years.
It comes after scientists managed to clone two black-footed ferrets earlier this year using frozen genes from 1988.
The ferrets, named Antonia and Noreen, could be the much-needed solution to the survival of the species, which has dwindled to just 300 in the wild.
The Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD) bred ten of the ferrets in captivity before releasing them into the Aubrey Valley area, an hour west of Flagstaff
The agency found that a bacterial disease called sylvatic plague, transmitted by fleas, was killing ferrets, which it controlled by using flea treatments similar to those used on pets.
Future controlled releases of ferrets are also planned for the next three years
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it hopes to breed when they reach full maturity later this year.
Black-footed ferrets are the only species native to North America and are among the continent’s most endangered mammals.
According to the World Wildlife Forum, ferret numbers are indicative of the health of the grassland ecosystem.