By Tobias Hughes, Earth Odyssey Youth Reporter

Download this article EO-1209-Youth_Reporter.pdf

The black-footed ferret is, in my eyes, an amazing little creature. I don’t know what draws me to them. I was feeling generous one evening and searched endangered animals and the blackfooted ferret popped up.

It seemed like a very passed by animal. It is cute, and is actually needed in wildlife. I looked the animal up online and developed a greater bond. I found a zoo and started a collection to donate to the zoo. It sadly ended too soon and the collection eventually fell to pieces.

When I joined Earth Odyssey, one of the first few things that came to my mind was the black-footed ferret. I know that the majority of Earth Odyssey readers are educated, conservation-minded people and that they would be willing to support the endeavor to help the black-footed ferret. I want people to support this greatly overlooked, important, small mammal.

Black-footed ferrets are one of North America’s most endangered mammals. They are members of the Mustelidae or weasel family, which also includes otters, badgers and wolverines.

Ferrets are 18 to 24 inches long, including a 5-6 inch tail. They weigh up to two and a half pounds. The average lifespan for a ferret is three to five years. Males and females look identical, although males are slightly larger.

Black-footed ferrets depend on prairie dogs for food and shelter. More than 90 percent of the ferrets’ diet is made up of prairie dogs. Ferrets and prairie dogs live in prairie dog towns in underground tunnels called burrows.

Prairie dogs are considered pests and a national effort to eliminate them in the 1900s had a devastating effect on black-footed ferrets. By late the 1970s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considered declaring them extinct.

Things began to look a lot brighter in 1981 when a colony of more than 100 blackfooted ferrets was discovered in Wyoming.  A disease outbreak, however, dropped the number of black-footed ferrets to 18. Seven of those were captured and a successful captive breeding program began.

In 1996—after a 60-year absence—the Arizona Game and Fish Department released 35 black-footed ferrets in Aubrey Valley outside of Seligman. That location became the fourth reintroduction site in the United States. With a little help, the black-footed ferrets will begin to thrive again.

AZGFD keeps tabs on the black-footed ferret population by conducting two spotlighting efforts annually: One in the spring and one in the fall. The spotlighting effort involves backpack spotlighting from dusk until dawn—the time when black-footed ferrets are most active.

Anyone interested in volunteering to participate should contact the black-footed ferret field station at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to receive more information.

For those who wish to contribute funds to help the black-footed cause, here are some World Wide Web sites to check out:

www.ferret.org/read/BFF-Page.html

http://hofa-rescue.org/clover/clover.html

www.worldwildlifefund.org/ogc/species_SKU.cfm?gid=4&cxs=29

These are just a few of the many organizations that you are able to donate to. Just a quick trip online can make a difference. Save the ferrets NOW!

Tobias Hughes is an eighth-grader at Mile High Middle School in Prescott.