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Black-footed Ferrets Coming Back from the Brink
In
1981 the black-footed ferret, was “rediscovered” on grasslands inWyoming.
Until then, biologists thought the last known individual had died in captivity
in 1979. Today the nation’s rarest land mammal species is back in the wild,
thanks in part to the major advocacy campaign that Defenders launched in the
mid-1980s, when only 18 of these creatures remained. We pushed hard to speed up the listing of
imperiled species and to develop sound recovery plans for those already
listed—like the black-footed ferret.
After years of successful captive
breeding, the species was reintroduced in Shirley Basin, Wyoming, in 1991. Today
there are more than 700 black-footed ferrets living in 10 locations across the
Great Plains. Their return the prairie is a
stunning accomplishment— but one that we must be ever-vigilant to protect as
private interest groups and opponents of wildlife conservation threaten to
unravel the ferrets’—and Defenders’— hard-won gains.
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