Two black-footed ferrets look out from their burrow. The species is both endangered and curious. (Kimberly Fraser/USFWS)
As op-ed writers, we often find ourselves writing about something negative, trying to inform the public about a problem that needs fixing. But I wanted to start 2024 with a win, to find a story to be hopeful about in the coming year.
So I looked to a swath of privately owned ranchland in the western part of the state, where this past November a cadre of volunteers including biologists, veterinarians, students, and zoo personnel headed into the dark of night looking for the “ eye-shine ” of one of North America’s most endangered mammals.
The black-footed ferret is a bit of a mystery. Members of the weasel family, they are a slender bundle of both endearingly playful antics and black-masked ferocity. They are predators, nocturnal, and live most of their lives underground, so they are difficult to find and even more difficult to study. Much of what is known about them is learned in captive breeding centers, which the species has been dependent upon for survival because not once, but twice, has the animal been considered extinct , a victim to its own vulnerability to disease, the systematic eradication of its primary food source and loss of its prairie habitat.