North Americas most endangered mammal, the black footed ferret, has made a remarkable recovery from the brink of extinction, a new study by a researcher from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department has revealed.
Washington, Aug 10 : North America's most endangered mammal, the black footed ferret, has made a remarkable recovery from the brink of extinction, a new study by a researcher from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department has revealed.
The finding suggested that a key population of the sleek-bodied predator in Shirley Basin, Wyoming, grew from a low of five in 1997 to more than 220 in 2006.
According to lead author Martin Grenier, the increase marks a rapid rise from a decade ago, when disease nearly decimated the ferrets in Shirley Basin, Wyoming's only recovery site for the animal.
Grenier said they measured the population by scouring thousands of acres at night using high-powered spotlights. But since they were able to survey only about 14 percent of the total 150,000-acre habitat, so "there's a chance that even more ferrets are out there than what we documented".
Grenier believes more than 400 ferrets might exist, and if his hunch proves correct, Shirley Basin would be home to the largest ferret colony in the United States, a distinction previously held by South Dakota's Conata Basin.
Steven Buskirk, a zoology professor at the University of Wyoming and co-author of the study has attributed the boom in ferret population to the area's enormous prairie dog colony.
Ferrets dine almost exclusively on the rodents and live in their prey's burrows.
As such, prairie dog colonies must be allowed to remain if ferrets are to survive, said Alan Pollom of The Nature Conservancy's Kansas City field office.
"If you're going to have a lot more ferrets, you need a lot more prairie dogs. There seems to be no way to get around that equation," he said.
The findings appear in the current issue of the journal Science, reports National Geographic.
ANI