Kansas ferrets key to species survival

9/5/2008

By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

The sylvatic plague epidemic under way in the Conata Basin of South Dakota has killed off thousands of prairie dogs and an untold number of highly endangered black-footed ferrets.

That makes the Kansas ferrets that much more important, at least one ferret expert suggests, for the most basic of reasons: sylvatic plague simply hasn't been found in northwest Kansas.

That's good because the plague is deadly to both prairie dogs and ferrets alike.

To be sure, there are a number of people who vehemently oppose the presence of any prairie dogs, and by default, the black-footed ferrets that feed upon them.

But ferrets are among the most threatened mammals in the United States, slowly recovering from a time when they were once thought extinct.

Sylvatic plague is the animal form of the much-feared plague in humans. But neither prairie dogs nor ferrets harbor the disease; instead, they are infected with a bacteria that is carried by fleas.

Wildlife officials have been fighting the plague outbreak since early spring, and it appears that about 9,000 acres out of 31,000 are affected.

Fighting the plague, however, means heading out on all-terrain vehicles and dusting prairie dog holes with insecticides to kill the offending fleas.

For ferrets, it's a bit more difficult than that.

Dealing with ferrets is a task that Travis Livieri has been focusing on this summer. Livieri is director of Prairie Wildlife Research, a Wellington, Colo., group that focuses on what might be the nation's most endangered mammal.

Before the plague outbreak was discovered, Livieri spent time in Logan County helping with the spring survey of ferrets that had been released in December by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

He didn't get to participate in the late-summer survey, at which time searchers were looking for young ferrets -- animals that were born earlier this summer to the released animals.

During that week of surveying, 15 animals were spotted in four families. Two adults and one kit were captured and examined.

Researchers hailed the survey results, marking the first time in more than 50 years that wild-born ferrets walked the plains of Kansas.

Livieri has been spending much of the summer in prairie dog towns of South Dakota. While others have been dusting for fleas, he has taken the night shift, venturing out to spot and capture ferrets.

Once captured, they are examined, tested and vaccinated with plague vaccine, a modified vaccination that FWS had to obtain from the military. To be protected, ferrets need at least two injections, the second at least two weeks after the first.

Livieri bemoaned the incidence of plague in the Conata Basin.

"This is the population that indicated ferret reintroduction could take off," he said.

The first reintroduction efforts at Conata Basin were in 1996, and it grew exponentially from there.

"People just went 'holy cow, this might work,' " he said. "I think a lot of people were just giving ferret introduction lip service."

"That was our biggest basket of eggs," said Dan Mulhearn, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the man behind the reintroduction process in Logan County. "It's certainly not good news."

It also has the largest number of ferrets in the wild.

"I counted 291 last year," Livieri said, "adults and kits. My gut feeling, I know there were more that I didn't catch."

Likely, there were about 350 ferrets in the basin last year.

A third of those may have already perished, falling victim to the plague.

Livieri isn't at all worried about the threat of plague to himself.

"Rattlesnakes pose a greater threat to me, and lightning, than plague does," he said. "I'd have to stick my head in a prairie dog hole or lick an infected prairie dog. The chances of me catching it, if I use common sense and even take minor precautions, such as putting bug spray on, reduces those chances greatly."

Plague in humans is relatively easy to cure, if treated early.

The discovery of plague in South Dakota means plenty for Kansas, and its small population of black-footed ferrets.

"That might be the last of it," Livieri said of Kansas as a plague-free zone. "Kansas is probably one of the last bastions of plague-free prairie dogs and that makes it important."

He's not ready to write off the Conata Basin, however.

"It's made this site even more important to protect," he said. "We need to focus on it and work on it."