Emergency Funding Needed for 2025 Black-footed Ferret Recovery Efforts
The black-footed ferret is one of North America’s most endangered mammals; fewer than 500 black-footed ferrets live in the wild today in 17 reintroduction sites. To ensure their survival, black-footed ferrets and their prairie dog prey must be protected annually from non-native sylvatic plague. Most of the 17 active black-footed ferret reintroduction sites in North America depend in part on Federal funding for this work. Recent freezes and uncertainty on already appropriated and allocated Federal funding threaten the ability of many sites to conduct plague prevention activities this spring. This could result in the loss of over half of the remaining black-footed ferret population in the wild within the year.
To avert the loss of black-footed ferrets, their habitat, and the biologists who protect them, conservation partners are working to secure $500,000 in emergency funding by April 30, 2025. Specifically, these funds will go to support black-footed ferrets, prairie dogs, and biologists at six tribal sites (Fort Belknap, Crow, and Northern Cheyenne Reservations in Montana and Cheyenne River, Lower Brule, and Standing Rock Reservations in South Dakota), three public land sites (Conata Basin/Badlands National Park and Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota, and Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado), and one private land site (Southern Plains Land Trust in Colorado).
To avert the loss of black-footed ferrets, their habitat, and the biologists who protect them, conservation partners are working to secure $500,000 in emergency funding by April 30, 2025. Specifically, these funds will go to support black-footed ferrets, prairie dogs, and biologists at six tribal sites (Fort Belknap, Crow, and Northern Cheyenne Reservations in Montana and Cheyenne River, Lower Brule, and Standing Rock Reservations in South Dakota), three public land sites (Conata Basin/Badlands National Park and Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota, and Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado), and one private land site (Southern Plains Land Trust in Colorado).
