Black Footed Ferret
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As darkness falls through the great plains of North America out creeps the black footed ferret from its hiding place down below. These little weasel- like creatures live underground in prairie dog holes and come out at night to mate and catch prey. If you were a black footed ferret your main diet would be prairie dogs. But if you were desperate you would kill ground squirrels or mice. Your life wouldn't be totally perfect either. There would be coyotes, hawks and badgers to watch out for too. The black footed though has a fowl smelling smelling scent gland under its tail like a skunk. Like a skunk they do not smell all the time.
There two reasons black footed ferrets are endangered. First, there was loss of food source. There are very few prairie dogs which makes it especially hard for the ferrets. Many ferrets died of hunger. The other reason was disease. After two disease strikes there were only 18 ferrets alive, all in captivity. Scientists took those 18 ferrets and bred them. Then they released them back into the wild. All of this happened through the 70's and early 80's. Since scientists started breeding ferrets, many ferrets have been released back into the wild.
Did you know that Black Footed Ferrets were once the most rarest animals in North America? This was because at one time Black footed ferrets were thought to be extinct. These animals were thought to be extinct for 25 years, but eventually people discovered that there were about 125 ferrets living around in Wyoming.