WilsonFerret

=**Historical**=
 * Description**
 * Weight: 1 kg[[image:http://cdn1.arkive.org/media/4A/4AD45F8C-8B5E-4DCB-9E0A-55B2550C6C1F/Presentation.Medium/Black-footed-ferret-infant.jpg width="536" height="359" align="right" caption="Black-footed ferret Andrew Harrington / naturepl.com"]]
 * Length (head to body): 31 - 41 cm
 * Tail Length: 11 - 15 cm
 * Nocturnal
 * Habitat: short and midgrass prairie (prairie dog burrows)
 * Range: Great Plains- (once) Alberta to the Southwestern US
 * Biological Classification:**
 * Kingdom: Animalia
 * Phylum: Chordata
 * Class: Mammalia
 * Order: Carnivora
 * Family: Mustelidae
 * Genus: Mustela
 * Species: Nigripes
 * Protection Status:**
 * IUCN Red List: (EN) Endangered
 * Cites: Appendix 1
 * Extinct in the wild: 1987
 * Only 1,000 individuals in the wild today

=**Black-footed Ferret Niche**=
 * The Black-footed ferret is a secondary consumer and carnivore. At one point in time, an incredibly 90% of its diet are prairie dogs, and its main environmental niche was controlling the population of prairie, which, with extremely high birth rates, can balloon causing much destruction of the prairie.

=Pressures=
 * Decimation of prairie dog population: As the midwest became more and more agriculturally oriented, the bread basket of the United States' expansion and the prairie dog population began to have an inverse relationship. Prairie dog dens were a nuisance to agricultural fields, and because of this farmers killed poisoned prairie dog populations on a massive scale. Because the black-footed ferret's diet is 90% prairie dog, the ferret diminished increasingly fast as well.
 * Habitat Loss: Farmers wanted more and more land to supply the growing American population. Unfortunately, as more and more of this land is taken, the black footed ferret populations, each of which need 40 to 60 km to roam, became more and more fragmented. On top of this, with the massive prairie dog extermination, the ferrets had less burrows to use for shelter and habitat.
 * Disease: When the plains were first being settled, Europeans and later Americans accidentally introduced canine distemper and the plague, both of which are very deadly to black-footed ferrets and prairie dogs. A canine distemper outbreak actually almost killed off the entire black-footed ferret species in 1980s.

= =



=**Conservation Efforts**=
 * 1979- Black footed ferrets are believed to be extinct
 * 1987- The first major conservation effort was when the last 18 wild black-footed ferrets were trapped and breed to save the species
 * Today conservation facilities including the National Zoo, Louisville Zoological Gardens, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, and the Toronto Zoo, produce over 300 kits a year, many of which are introduced back to the wild in hopes of revitalizing the black-footed ferret species.
 * The population of black-footed ferrets is far from stable but there species survival is now almost fully assured.

=Citations= > WildScreen, 2010. Web. 10 Oct. 2010.  black-footed-ferret/mustela-nigripes/>. > Recovery Implementation Team, 2009. Web. 11 Oct. 2010. > .
 * "Black-footed Ferret (Mustela nigripes)." ////Arkive Images of Life on Earth////.
 * "Ferret Facts." ////Black-Footed Ferret Recovery Program////. Black-footed Ferret