Written by Bethany Howell, Deputy Director of Communications & Outreach
Out on the prairie, when the sun meets the horizon, it’s “magic hour.” For those of us standing near the prairie dog burrows dotting the eastern Colorado landscape of the May Ranch in Prowers County, magic had indeed just happened. We were the privileged few invited to participate in the Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) Commission Meeting with a special event preceding – a release of North America’s most endangered mammal, the black footed ferret.
This event would not have happened without the stewardship ethic of the May family. They are among a growing number of agricultural producers recognizing that the essential and beneficial balance between wildlife and agriculture needs thoughtful and deliberate action. As our understanding of soil health issues, range management, and the need for diverse production practices increases, we also recognize that agriculture and wildlife management are not independent of each other. Conservation practices can improve farming and ranching conditions, preserve the health of our range and farm lands, and support goals of ag producers while also ensuring that wildlife species thrive.
The black footed ferret is a timely example of beneficial biocontrol. These creatures may look adorable, but they are deadly predators whose diet consists of 90% prairie dogs. After years of being thought extinct, a few black footed ferrets were discovered in Montana in the 1960s, paving the way for wildlife biologists to begin building back their numbers. There are still fewer than 500 ferrets living in the wild, and the ones in Colorado have been slowly and thoughtfully released into habitat that is ideal for them to thrive.
Seven sites in Colorado, four of them in the Eastern Plains, support this predator on the federal endangered list, whose biocontrol of prairie dog populations is key to managing wildlife habitat and private agricultural lands. Prairie dogs themselves are a keystone species, serving as an integral link in the prairie ecosystem as food for predators like the ferrets, rattlesnakes, raptors, and coyotes, and whose burrows provide shelter for ferrets, burrowing owls, and other small prey species. Their propensity for eating grasses around their burrows helps regenerate grasslands, but only if their populations are at controllable levels, i.e., they’re not eating themselves and everyone else out of house and home.
Prairie dogs are not always looked upon favorably by the farmers and ranchers whose land is dotted by their holes, which can break machinery, livestock legs, and create soil erosion issues. They are also host to the bubonic plague, which can be transmitted to other animals and humans. Clearly, a balance between the existence of prairie dogs and their habitat is crucial for both wildlife and agricultural production acreage. Therefore, the introduction of the black footed ferret is also crucial to biocontrol as each ferret can eat up to 150 prairie dogs per year.
Private agricultural lands have long been critical habitat for many wildlife species. Migratory animals like mule deer, elk, moose, and pronghorn rely on the wide open spaces of pastures, grasslands, and wet meadows that offer grazing and connective corridors to forests and mountains. Birds of all shapes and sizes, both native like the lark bunting and just passing through such as the sandhill crane, use private lands as a safe resting place for feeding and nesting. That’s not to mention the thousands of other species, from boreal toads to kit foxes, who find refuge from humans and predators in the fields and wetlands of many a farmer and rancher.
The fifteen black footed ferrets, a mix of males and females, will hopefully live happily on the private lands of the May Ranch. The May family carefully selected the sites, working with wildlife biologists from the US Fish & Wildlife Service as well as CPW, to achieve the perfect balance of healthy prairie dog population density required to meet the black footed ferrets’ dietary and breeding needs. The Mays will continue to monitor the ferrets’ progress, observing prairie dog population numbers, and with luck, seeing successful breeding and a continued ferret presence into the future.
As we tipped the ferret from its pet carrier into the black tubing leading to an unsuspecting prairie dog’s home, the quiet from a group of over 40 people focused on one creature’s journey, the only sound the whistle of the wind over the plains, couldn’t have illustrated more that it was truly a magic hour: for conservation efforts, for the partnership between private agriculture and wildlife habitat, and for Colorado.
For more information on the ferret release, check out this Colorado Sun story.