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By MIKE CORN
Hays Daily News
Dormant for 11 months now, a draft proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reintroduce the endangered black-footed ferret now is up for public comment.
The draft environmental assessment report was published Friday in the Federal Register, a requirement before the process can move forward at all, whether it be in terms of taking public comment or the actual reintroduction process.
Comments must be made by Nov. 19.
"I think it's great news," Audubon of Kansas Executive Director Ron Klataske said of publication of the draft proposal. "It's been held up for 11 months now. There wasn't any reason for it to be held up other than political."
The proposal has, in fact, been held up since Nov. 29 when it was first unveiled at an open house in Oakley.
Since then, the ferret reintroduction effort has languished. Commissioners have pushed for the extermination of prairie dogs -- relying on a 100-year-old law -- while ranchers have tried to hold the county at bay.
Publication in the Federal Register also will allow the FWS to consider comments received at that November open house, said Mike LeValley, project leader for the Kansas Ecological Services office in Manhattan.
"I'd say in the hundreds," LeValley said of the comments that followed in the wake of that meeting, an informal event that included the display of a ferret en route to a zoo in Hutchinson.
The sheer number of comments and the complexity of the issues raised will dictate how long it might be before a decision could be made on whether or not to release the ferrets.
"We get to a point in January when it's kind of iffy," LeValley said. "The preferred time to release them is in the fall."
Any ferrets that would be released would come from captive-breeding stock, and likely would number 40, based on the amount of land being considered in Logan County.
Any release would be considered experimental -- terminology that is considered critical by many.
FWS even is willing to certify in writing such a release "will not interfere with the rights of landowners to manage their properties, including legal means of prairie dog control if ferrets leave designated release properties and enter nearby lands," said Steve Guertin, acting regional director of the FWS Mountain-Prairie Region. "The service is committed to maintaining property rights of neighbors and other landowners who do not desire ferrets or prairie dogs."
If a ferret is killed as a result of normal poisoning, for example, the rancher would not be liable. It would, however, continue to be illegal to intentionally kill a ferret.
The experiment, if approved, would last five years.
If the release moves ahead, this would be the second time ferrets have been released on private land, LeValley said. It has been done in Arizona on a large ranch that adjoins federal land.
The goal is to have 10 free-ranging populations of ferrets spread over the widest possible area within their former range.
Logan County is being considered because of the willingness of several ranchers and because it is in a plague-free zone that boosts the chances of maintaining a population of ferrets.
Sylvatic plague is deadly to prairie dogs and ferrets, but has not been found in northwest Kansas.
LeValley said it's important for people wanting to comment to include information supporting their position.
Simply saying they do or don't want the ferrets isn't helpful, he said.
"It's not a vote per se," he said.
The Kansas Livestock Association's Mike Beam said his group will be watching the process, but hasn't taken a stance on it yet. Beam said he was glad FWS is listing the reintroduction as experimental.
He also hopes to meet with members soon to consider a position.
Klataske agreed that it's important to recognize the release is considered experimental and that all of the ferrets are considered expendable.
He's also hopeful a release could be made yet this fall or winter.
He believes Logan County is one of the best sites for experimental reintroduction in the southern Great Plains, and certainly the best in Kansas.
"And young ferrets are available," he said.
Special-projects coordinator Mike Corn can be reached at (785) 628-1081, Ext. 129, or by e-mail at mcorn@dailynews.net.
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