Black-footed ferret
Photo Courtesy of Utah Division of Wildlife Resources
Mustela nigripes
NatureServe conservation status
Global (G-rank): G1
State (S-rank): S1
Utah Wildlife Action Plan status
- SGCN
External links
Species range
Black-footed ferrets historically occurred across the plains and intermountain regions of 12 US states, extreme southern Canada, and extreme northern Mexico (USFWS 2013). Currently, it lives in eight states. As this small mustelid relies on prairie dogs to provide both its food and habitat (in the form of burrows), its distribution is absolutely restricted to areas with prairie dogs. In Utah the only area where black-footed ferrets have been reintroduced is in the Coyote Basin area of northeastern Utah.
Habitat
When Durrant (1952) reported the only specimen of this species that has been collected in Utah, he failed to include any mention of habitat. Many of the reports of observations this species in recent years received by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources have been in prairie dog colonies, which are invariably in open plains.
Ecology
Black-footed ferrets rely on prairie dogs for their habitat. Black-footed ferrets live exclusively in prairie dog burrows within prairie dog colonies and their most important prey item is prairie dogs.
Threats or limiting factors
A major threat to black-footed ferret populations is the impact of disease on ferrets and prairie dogs. Sylvatic plague epizootics can dramatically decrease prairie dog populations. This influences the amount of prey available to black-footed ferrets. In addition, sylvatic plague is always fatal to black-footed ferrets when they are exposed. Long-term persistence of black-footed ferrets will require management of disease outbreaks.
Another major threat is a result of the extremely low population level when the few remaining black-footed ferrets were brought into the captive-breeding program. Genetic diversity among remaining ferrets is very low. Black-footed ferrets now live in small, isolated populations scattered across several states. This makes it difficult to have genetic exchange within the overall population, and can compound impacts from low genetic diversity. However, the isolation helps with management of plague outbreaks.