Defenders of Wildlife Blog

Kylie Paul, Rockies & Plains Representative 

Yip.

YIP!

YIPPPP!!!

Walking through a healthy prairie dog colony is a noisy affair. Alarm calls from many individuals alert the colony to an invader’s presence. Three of us, Defenders’ Rockies and Plains field staff from Missoula, heard this sound often during our trip to Montana’s Milk River Basin last week, in search of the often maligned but critically important burrowing rodent known as the black-tailed prairie dog.

Fort Belknap Indian Reservation – A place of short-grass prairie beauty!

Besides the fact that they are as adorable as they are fascinating, prairie dogs happen to be important to a host of other plains-dwelling wildlife. They are a key prey species for the ferruginous hawk, the American badger, and most notably, the federally endangered black-footed ferret. Their extensive burrow systems also provide shelter for the burrowing owl, the tiger salamander, the western rattlesnake, and of course the black-footed ferret. Finally, the short-clipped vegetation in their colonies provides important habitat for the mountain plover and other grassland birds.

Prairie dogs’ invaluable role in grassland ecosystems is what brought us to Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, home to the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre Tribes. Our job was to map prairie dog colonies and identify the amount of suitable habitat as part of a possible effort to reintroduce black-footed ferrets. Fort Belknap was one of the early recovery sites for black-footed ferrets, when they were reintroduced to prairie dog colonies in 1997.

Black-footed ferrets depend on prairie dog colonies for their survival. But in many areas across the West, agricultural producers have viewed prairie dogs as pests. As a result, prairie dogs have faced widespread extermination for more than a century. They also face another major problem. Prairie dog numbers have plummeted as a result of sylvatic plague (yes, plague!) outbreaks that have decimated many of the once-thriving prairie dog colonies at Fort Belknap and across the West. Plague is not endemic to North America but was brought here by rodents stowed away on ships in the early 1900s. Today, plague continues to have negative cascading effects on wildlife populations.

Sound the Alarm!

Currently, we are collaborating with tribal wildlife officials and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to identify prairie dog strongholds at Fort Belknap and take measures to protect them from future plague outbreaks. If we find enough acres of prairie dog colonies and protect them from plague, this area could once again have hope for restoring a new population of ferrets via ferret reintroduction. With another population of ferrets in the wild, the species has a better chance of recovery. Alongside WWF and students from Montana State University and Aaniiih Nakoda College, we met with the Tribes’ fish and wildlife director to plan the prairie dog mapping project. The mapping effort focused on prairie dog colonies within the Tribes’ buffalo reserve. Fort Belknap has been home to a herd of bison since the 1970s, and Defenders is working with the Tribes to restore a new herd of wild bison from Yellowstone.

Over the course of two long days, working against petulant weather and an excess of mud, Defenders helped map over 500 acres of active prairie dog colonies within the bison range on the Fort Belknap Reservation. Additional mapping is slated for later this summer. The good news is that prairie dog colonies appear to be doing relatively well at Fort Belknap. With the Tribes’ efforts and a little bit of luck, the colonies will continue to grow and Fort Belknap will see the return of a robust black-footed ferret population.

We took a camera along as we mapped – here are some photos from the trip:

PausePlayPlayPrev|Next

Fort Belknap Indian Reservation

A place of short-grass prairie beauty!

Working Together

We trained with tribal and conservation folks to map the prairie dog colony

Training Volunteers

Defenders' Northern Rockies Representative Jonathan Proctor (left) trains volunteers to help us map the colonies.

Baby birds!

All kinds of wildlife make their home on the prairie. These are likely McCown's longspur chicks.

Pronghorn

Pronghorn on the beautiful short-grass prairie landscape of Fort Belknap

Marbled godwit

Just one of the many bird species that make their homes in shortgrass prairie landscapes.

Mapping a prairie dog colony

Sound the Alarm!

This prairie dog saw us coming and started sounding the alarm to warn the colony of intruders.

Curious prairie dog

Eggs of a chestnut-collared longspur

Prairie dog closeup

Bison

It was great to see the new calves added to the herd.

Mapping

Defenders' employee Russ Talmo, mapping a prairie dog colony before an oncoming storm.

Prairie dogs!

Chesnut-collared Longspur

We saw a variety of birds while we were out, including lark bunting, long-billed curlew, marbled godwit, grasshopper sparrow, Brewer's sparrow, vesper sparrow, McCown's longspur and more.

Lookout

A prairie dog keeps an eye on the oncoming storm

Jonathan Proctor, Rockies and Plains Representative 

What’s the Deal with Ferrets?

Black-footed ferrets rely on large prairie dog colonies for food and shelter.

Black-footed ferrets are small predators that live only in large prairie dog colonies across the central and western grasslands of North America. They live in prairie dog burrows and prairie dogs make up more than 90 percent of their diet. They are one of only three ferret species in the world and the only one native to North America. They are often confused with domestic ferrets, which appear similar but are actually a different species originally from Europe.

Black-footed ferrets numbered in the tens of thousands before the 1800s, but were brought to the brink of extinction due to widespread human destruction of their prairie-dog-colony habitat and the arrival of exotic diseases including sylvatic plague in the 1900s. Back then, before the protections of the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. government viewed prairie dogs as a pest, and actually paid for the widespread poisoning of prairie dog colonies that brought the black-footed ferret to the brink of extinction.

The ESA Saves the Day
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is our nation’s landmark wildlife conservation law. It was signed into law in 1973. So few black-footed ferrets remained at that time that they were one of the original species protected under the new law. But they were already too far gone in the wild, and when the last known black-footed ferret died in captivity in 1979 they were declared extinct.

Then, on September 26, 1981, a ranch dog named Shep caught a black-footed ferret in Meeteetse, Wyoming, leading to the discovery of a single remaining population. This time, the protections of the ESA led to a flurry of activity to save this species from a “second” extinction. Dedicated conservationists from federal, state and private agencies jumped on the opportunity to help the species survive and recover.

This last population was mapped, studied and monitored. But before long, disease struck. The few remainders were captured. By 1986, only 18 black-footed ferrets were alive, all in captivity. Thus began a 25-year-and-counting captive breeding program. A federal recovery plan was drafted in 1988, which guided plans to increase the captive population and then restore the species to the wild.

Defenders’ Jonathan Proctor releases a black-footed ferret in Conata Basin, South Dakota (Credit: Steve Forrest)

Since the first reintroduction into Wyoming’s Shirley Basin in 1991, black-footed ferrets have been reintroduced in 19 locations in Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Kansas, New Mexico, the Mexican state of Chihuahua and the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that about 750 ferrets now live in 17 of these locations (half of the population goal outlined in the 1988 Black-footed Ferret Recovery Plan) and another 350 or so in captive breeding facilities. Four locations have surpassed the required minimum of 30 breeding adults.  At least six more must reach this goal. For a species once at the very brink of extinction, an amazingly full recovery of this species is within our grasp.

It is difficult to speculate how much of this work would have been done without the ESA, but it is likely that the black-footed ferret would be extinct today without the level of commitment and funding that resulted from this law. Federal oversight under the authority of the ESA has led to the collaboration of dozens of federal, state and tribal agencies, in cooperation with private landowners, conservation groups including Defenders of Wildlife, and the North American zoo community. A national black-footed ferret conservation center has produced thousands of black-footed ferrets for reintroduction.

As an official member of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service black-footed ferret recovery implementation team, Defenders is assisting the effort to reintroduce black-footed ferrets and protect them in their native habitat. Because prairie dogs are so important to black-footed ferrets, we are working to restore prairie dogs to new sites such as Thunder Basin National Grassland in Wyoming and prevent the destruction of prairie dog colonies in existing black-footed ferret areas like Conata Basin in South Dakota.

We’re also helping a group of ranchers in Kansas who are fighting to save prairie dogs and their newly reintroduced ferret population from a century-old state law requiring the death of all prairie dogs. And we’re working on solutions to help reduce conflict with neighbors of these sites who do not want prairie dog colonies expanding onto their properties. By installing portable electric fences to keep cattle out of 100 foot “buffer zones” along property boundaries, the grass can grow tall enough to discourage prairie dogs from colonizing there —  prairie dogs avoid tall grass due to threats from predators.

Looking Forward
Though we have a long way to go to full black-footed ferret recovery, by nearly all measurements the ferret’s reintroduction to the wild has been a stunning accomplishment. Our challenge now is to restore more large colonies of prairie dogs and reintroduce more ferrets so that we can finish the job of recovering one of the most endangered mammals on the continent. Ferrets have been given a second chance. Now it’s our job to make sure their rediscovery was not in vain.

Want to see a black-footed ferret in action? Check out this neat video of one in the wild.