By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

RUSSELL SPRINGS -- Kansas by spotlight.

Almost certain not to catch on as a new trend, it was the foray of choice for Travis Livieri, taking not to the road, but to the fields instead.

He and others like him -- wildlife aficionados willing to spend a night or a week in the vampire world -- sleeping by day, venturing out only at night -- were in search of emerald-green eyes.

Those are the eyes of the nation's most endangered mammal, the black-footed ferret, 24 of which were released in December at three locations in Logan County.

Federal and state wildlife officials, including Livieri, executive director of the Prairie Wildlife Research Center in Wellington, Colo., joined U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Dan Mulhearn at the release sites for a week of spotlighting. Livieri last week offered the opportunity to see what it's like to go in search of ferrets.

They were joined by a number of other folks in the nighttime venture, including Ken Brunson, wildlife diversity coordinator for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, and Samantha Wisely, a wildlife biologist at Kansas State University. Wisley is conducting a series of studies on the genetics of ferrets.

Because black-footed ferrets are almost exclusively nocturnal, only rarely venturing outside in the daylight, spotlighting is essentially the only way to determine if ferrets made it through the winter months.

And survive they did.

The spotlighters ended up with eight confirmed black-footed ferrets -- two males and four females -- on the Larry Haverfield/Gordon Barnhardt complex south of Russell Springs. Two other BFFs, a male and a female, were found on The Nature Conservancy's Smoky Valley Ranch south of Oakley.

"That is an absolute minimum," Livieri said. "I suspect there were animals we missed."

"They're doing good," said Logan County rancher Larry Haverfield. "I was afraid they wouldn't find one."

Once the ferrets have been spotted, researchers can put down an electronic ring, through which the ferrets must pass to exit from the burrow.

That's when researchers can find out all sorts of detail about the animal, such as its sex, age or where the animal came from. All of that is a result of a rice grain-sized computer chip, not at all unlike what veterinarians implant in dogs and cats for identification should they get lost.

Last week's spotlight on the prairie -- the first since the ferrets were released -- is something of a precursor to what perhaps could be a more important and intensive spotlighting event this fall.

That's when the wildlife community will learn if any of the ferrets were able to breed, expanding the number of ferrets in Logan County, once a stronghold for the animal until it was extirpated from the area.

Most likely, each of the three females, will breed later this month, with "blind, helpless, hairless" kits born about June 1, Livieri said.

When they are born underground, he said, "They are about the size of the tip of your thumb."

Each of the females will have perhaps a litter of three, all of the kits remaining underground until sometime in late July.

"In the wild, we really don't know how many kits are born," Livieri said. "But we can count how many survive."

The females raise the kits on their own, and the breeding and rearing process takes a toll.

"Mom's got quite a task ahead of her to raise those kits," he said, "and it puts quite a bit of stress on them. You can see them, when you see a female ferret in the summer, she's pretty skinny, she looks pretty ragged. She goes through quite an ordeal to raise those young."

Males, after breeding, amble off on their own.

The kits, as they get about 90 days old, start becoming more independent and generally strike off on their own in September or October.

That quick maturity is just a hint of what is to come.

In the wild, Livieri said, a male lives not much more than a year and a half; a female, two years.

"They're lucky to get one or two breeding seasons in," he said. "A kit that's born in June 2008 will be breeding in April of 2009.

"If a ferret makes it to 3 years old, it's doing pretty good. That's like making it to 75 years in human terms."

For the most part, the short life span is a result of the ferrets small size and its attraction for predators, such as coyotes, ferrigunous hawks or badgers.

There are plenty of badgers in a prairie dog town environment.

"I think for a badger, a prairie dog town is a smorgasbord," Livieri said. "You've got these 11âÑ2- or 2-pound critters sleeping underground and all you have to do is dig down and bite 'em," he said.

Livieri said he had high hopes for the Logan County release sites.

"I think this site is going to do very well," he said. "There's some excellent habitat here. My gut feeling is it's a great spot for ferrets."

A ready supply of prairie dogs -- the food of choice for ferrets -- is critical for a ferret population. And they need to be in close proximity to each other.

Ferrets, Livieri said, are extremely territorial. Females claim about 200 acres, while males claim twice that, overlapping into territory occupied by females.

"They don't tolerate each other that well," he said. "They're loners. The only time you will see them together is when they are breeding or when mom has her kits."

Generally, he said, a ferret will eat about 125 prairie dogs a year, more when a female has kits. Ferrets are not a population control mechanism for prairie dogs, Livieri said.

Although they only found 10 ferrets, Livieri suspects that more will be found when the fall survey is conducted.

"I'd say that's a minimum number," he said. "We're not going to be able to cover every prairie dog town. There's probably ones that we missed. In the fall, when they do the big survey, there will probably be animals that turn up that we missed."