The black-footed ferret was believed to be extinct many years ago. When Europeans settled all over North America, they found that the soil was incredibly fertile. However, there were "too" many prairie dogs. They labelled the prairie dogs as pests and money would be rewarded for each prairie dog that was killed. Black-footed ferrets hunt these prairie dogs and when the population for their food severely declined, so did the black-footed ferrets. It was not only the disappearance of their food that pushed them on the verge of extinction. As the Europeans tended the fields and altered the land, black-footed ferrets also lost their habitat. Habitat and food are are crucial to the survival of any organism and with the loss of those two factors, the population of black-footed ferrets disappeared.
Luckily in 1981 near Meeteetse, Wyoming, a small population of these ferrets were found. 24 of them were captured as the population continued to decline. The captured ferrets were taken to a captive breeding facility. Each year, they release a couple of ferrets back into the wild and hopefully the population will continue to rise.
History of the black-footed ferret. (2011). Retrieved from http://blackfootedferret.org/history
