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By MIKE CORN
Hays Daily News
RUSSELL SPRINGS -- With little fanfare, 24 endangered black-footed ferrets were released on three Logan County ranches Tuesday evening by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The ferrets, raised in captivity, were released in prairie dog towns on land owned by Larry Haverfield, Gordon Barnhardt and the Smoky Valley Ranch owned by the Nature Conservancy.
It has been 50 years since the animal has been documented in Kansas.
Haverfield this morning said he went out looking for the ferrets Wednesday night, but had no luck locating them.
"A new toy," he said of the nocturnal mammals, once thought to be extinct.
Exact details of the release are not yet known, or why the FWS decided to make the release without observers.
What is known, however, is 10 ferrets were turned loose on the Nature Conservancy land, with the remaining animals split between land owned by Haverfield and Barnhardt.
The Haverfield-Barnhardt complex, located southwest of Russell Springs, has been at the heart of a controversy surrounding the ferrets and the prairie dogs that are needed as a source of food.
Logan County commissioners have poisoned areas on the Haverfield land, and have taken the issue to court. Haverfield and Barnhardt also obtained a restraining order against the county to halt poisoning of land with highly toxic Phostoxin.
A Shawnee County district judge has taken under advisement a request by the county for a restraining order. The county hopes to force Haverfield from moving cattle onto land where prairie dogs are located so it can continue poisoning.
Despite the shroud of secrecy around the release, the federal wildlife agency notified key players, including the commissioners.
"Yeah, they called me," said Commission Chairman Doug Mackley. "They left a message on the phone."
What the county will do next is uncertain, he said.
"It's pretty tough to fight the federal government," Mackley said. "We'll talk about it. So far, we haven't done anything."
Audubon of Kansas Executive Director Ron Klataske hailed the release, a highlight of what has been a two-year battle that started when Logan County landowners contacted FWS asking them to consider the release of ferrets.
"I'm ecstatic," he said. "This is a wonderful addition to the wildlife heritage of Kansas."
He and Haverfield both had the chance to physically release one of the ferrets into a prairie dog hole where they will take up residence.
The goal of the release -- considered experimental -- is to help establish a breeding population of ferrets in Kansas.
Klataske said the ultimate goal of the black-footed ferret recovery plan is to establish breeding populations in 11 states. Before Tuesday, Kansas was not part of that effort.
As they are released, he said, the ferrets generally head down into the hole and then return to look around.
"These burrows are their security blanket," he said. "They try to stay as close to them as possible."
For Klataske, the release Tuesday complements the wildlife-rich environment.
"These properties are teeming with wildlife right now," he said.
That wildlife also includes predators that will test the very skills of the ferrets that were released.
The release has been slow coming, Klataske noted.
Originally, the hope was to release ferrets on Kansas land a year ago.
"The opposition held that up for over a year," he said.
But as the release was delayed, Audubon and Haverfield moved ahead with efforts to halt the migration of prairie dogs onto adjoining land.
As well, with the release, FWS has made money available to help stem the movement and after the first of the year will be working with a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in locating a local representative in the area to respond to complaints about prairie dogs.
Special-projects reporter Mike Corn can be reached at (785) 628-1081, Ext. 129, or by e-mail at mcorn@dailynews.net.
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