Black-Footed Ferret, on a Population Rebound, Faces New Threats From Prairie Dog Plague

New research suggests that the black-footed ferret has a chance to come back from the brink of extinction if the right conservation moves are made.

Black-footed ferrets disappeared from the North American wilderness in the late 1980s due to a rash of plague outbreaks and distemper, as well as from humans poisoning the ferret's favorite prey, prairie dogs.

Since then, a captive breeding effort has led to the reestablishment of four wild populations. But these conservation gains are threatened by a bacterial plague that has genetic links to the same organisms that spawned the Black Death epidemic in the Middle Ages.

According to new research published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, this exotic bacterial disease plague poses a severe threat to existing prairie dog populations in North America, and, in turn, the struggling black-footed ferret population as well.

"An alarming finding of our study is that there are few prairie dog complexes left that are large enough to support black-footed ferret populations given the severe threats they face -- especially plague," said Kevin Shoemaker, a post-doctoral scientist at Stony Brook University involved with the research.

Shoemaker and his collaborators used computer models to map the spread and survival of the plague, prairie dogs and black-footed ferrets. The models suggest that if the black-footed ferret is to survive amid the plague ravaging its primary food source, the area of conservation set aside for the ferrets must be larger than previously estimated.

Ferret expert Travis Livieri, a study co-author and Executive Director of Prairie Wildlife Research in Wellington, Co., said: "The new results underscore the importance of working with many constituents to conserve large prairie dog landscapes and finding new tools to combat plague."

Novel vaccination programs are already underway, the researchers said.

Resit Akçakaya, a Stony Brook University professor participating in the research suggested that the study models can be applied to help determine the best places and methods of applying pesticides and vaccines to reduce the spread of the plague in North American prairie dogs.