The European polecat and the steppe or Siberian polecat are its closest living relatives in the wild. The black-footed ferret was once found throughout the eastern and southern Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains.
The black-footed Ferret is found in short or middle grass prairies. It often makes its homes in abandoned prairie dog burrows. The black-footed ferret eats prairie dogs. It slithers down prairie dog tunnels and kills the prairie dog with a quick bite to the back of the neck.
If it can't find prairie dogs, it eats other small mammals like mice, gophers, and ground squirrels. It may also eat birds, eggs, and small reptiles. The black-footed ferret mates in March and April. The female has a litter of young in a burrow in the ground 41 days after mating.
The female nurses and cares for the young. About 3, Black-Footed Ferrets are necessary to fully recover the species. Although the hundreds of living ferrets today is an improvement upon near-extinction, the Black-Footed Ferret is still an IUCN International Union for Conservation of Nature endangered animal and is one of the most endangered animals in North America. The species is still at risk from disease, loss of habitat, and related declines in prey.
Predators of the Black Footed Ferret include golden eagles, owls, coyotes, badgers, and bobcats. Although predators of the Black-Footed Ferrets can be found in abundance, one of the most serious risks to the long-term survival of the species is disease. Ferrets have faced serious challenges when it comes to sylvatic plague, which is the name used for the Black Death when found in animals.
Sylvatic plague is a fast-spreading bacterial disease which is carried by fleas, and conservationists have come up with creative ways of preventing the spread of this disease to ferrets. One is a peanut-butter flavored oral vaccine bait. This bait was developed with prairie dogs in mind, helping them to build immunity against the disease. If prairie dogs can avoid the plague, ferrets are at less risk, too. Organizations like the World Wildlife Fund and the US Fish and Wildlife Service are also experimenting with drones to see if they can drop this bait across thousands of acres of prairie dog colonies.
The population did well, and in , the park was able to capture and transfer 33 ferrets to a new home at Wind Cave National Park , where a population of about 60 ferrets also thrives today. In , sylvatic plague known as the Black Death when found in humans was discovered in Conata Basin. In order to minimize this risk, research crews were able to vaccinate some ferrets in addition to dusting prairie dog holes with insecticide to prevent the spread of fleas. They have also been released into Canada and Mexico!
The prairie dog burrow systems that black-footed ferrets inhabit offers shelter from predators. They also make use of sharp canines and a good sense of smell. Skip to main content. Entry passes are required for all guests, including infants. All visitors ages 2 and older are required to wear a mask in all indoor spaces at the Zoo, regardless of their vaccination status. Fully vaccinated visitors do not need to wear a mask in outdoor areas. And Other Ferret Questions Answered.
Share this page:. You asked the internet, we answered. Black-footed ferrets are very vocal. A loud chatter is used as an alarm call. A hiss is used to show agitation or fear, and females use whimpering sounds to encourage the young to follow. Male ferrets often "chortle" to females during breeding. Ferrets have a high metabolic rate and require large quantities of food in proportion to their body size. Food requirements vary with the seasons and among individual ferrets, but they generally consume one prairie dog every three or four days.
In the wild, 90 percent of black-footed ferrets' diet is prairie dogs. One ferret may eat over prairie dogs in a year, and scientists calculate that one ferret family needs more than prairie dogs each year.
The remainder of their diet includes mice, rats, ground squirrels, rabbits, birds and occasionally reptiles and insects. The Smithsonian's National Zoo's black-footed ferret is fed a commercial carnivore meat mix, mice, and rats. Black-footed ferrets lead solitary lives, except during the breeding season or when females are caring for young. Breeding activity generally occurs in March and April; after a gestation period of 41 to 43 days, a litter of kits is born. The average litter size is three to four young, but single kits, as well as litters of nine or ten, have been recorded.
Only the female cares for the young. The kits are born blind and helpless, weighing only 0. Their dark markings appear at about 3 weeks of age and young kits begin to open their eyes about 35 days after birth.
Black-footed ferret kits develop very rapidly and become increasingly active after their eyes open. Kits are about three-quarters grown by July when they first venture above ground. Long after they stop nursing, they depend on their mother for meals of meat.
By late summer, the female leaves her kits in separate burrows during the day and gathers them together at night to hunt.
Eventually, the young begin to hunt alone, and by September are usually independent and solitary. Ferrets become sexually mature at 1 year of age, and their peak reproductive period is at about 3 to 4 years. Black-footed ferrets are primarily nocturnal.
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