The black-footed ferret is a long, slender animal. Nature has made these mammals that way to enable them to easily slip through prairie dog burrows. You may wonder why they haunt these burrows – it’s because their main diet is the prairie dog! Also, they make the burrows their cosy home. They weigh between 1.5 and 2.5 pounds and can grow up to 24 inches long. A strip of dark fur across their eyes gives them the appearance of wearing a mask – rather like bandits!
This member of the weasel family once roamed the prairies from southern Canada to Texas but is now one of the most endangered mammals in North America. In the early 1900s, the United States was perhaps home to over 5 million ferrets. Early in the 20th Century, when agricultural development took place in the U.S., rodent poisons practically wiped out prairie dog populations and in turn the ferrets. Thirteen years after they were listed as endangered in 1967, the last captive ferret died, and the animals were thought to be extinct in North America. Then in 1981 a small population was discovered in a Wyoming prairie dog colony. Between 1991 and 1999, some of these ferrets were released in Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Arizona and along the Utah/Colorado border. And that’s how they were brought back from the brink of extinction. Biologists estimate that are now well over a 1000 black-footed ferrets living in the wild. The average life span of a ferret in the wild is 1-3 years, and 4-6 years for ferrets in captivity.
There are only three ferret species on Earth: the European polecat, the Siberian polecat, and the black-footed ferret. The black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes) is the only ferret species native to North America. Female ferrets are called “jills”, males are called “hobs” and the young ones are called “kits”. The slender animal has buff or tan fur, with black feet, tail tip, nose and face mask. It has triangular ears, hardly any whiskers, a short muzzle, and sharp claws.
While their main diet is the prairie dog, in regions where prairie dogs hibernate in winter, ferrets feed on mice, voles, ground squirrels, rabbits, and birds. Black-footed ferrets get water by consuming their prey. Ferrets are preyed upon by eagles, owls, hawks, rattlesnakes, coyotes, badgers, and bobcats.
Except when mating or raising their offspring, black-footed ferrets are solitary, nocturnal hunters. They use prairie dog burrows to sleep, catch their food, and raise their young. They are vocal animals their sounds ranging from hisses, whimpers to loud chattering. Like domestic ferrets, they perform the “weasel war dance”, consisting of a series of hops, often accompanied by a clucking sound (dooking), arched back, and frizzed tail. In the wild, the ferrets may dance to distract prey as well as to show they are enjoying life.
Picture Credit : Google