Saving Planet Earth

The black-footed ferret is among the most endangered animals in the world and though they ferrets were said to be making a comeback in 2006 they still continue to struggle for their existence. But there’s some hope…

Within the confines of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, black-footed ferrets gave birth to two kits sired by males who died in 1999 and 2000. Yep, you read that right. The fathers of these two newborn ferrets died 8 years ago but scientists managed to get some semen from the two dead males, froze it and artificially inseminated the mothers with it resulting to the two new kits last June.

Black ferrets once inhabited the grasslands of the western Great Plains but their population declined with the loss of the North American prairie ecosystem according to the zoo scientists. Prairie dogs are the ferret’s primary prey, and only 2 percent of the original prairie dog habitat remains today. Adding to their misfortune, a recent outbreak of sylvatic plague (a.k.a. bubonic plague) in a prairie dog population in South Dakota also threatens to decimate ferret populations there.

Luckily, in the Zoo’s Black-Footed Ferret Genome Resource Bank keeps frozen semen from the most valuable males. The bank’s contents help maintain and even enhance genetic diversity by infusing new genes into the population because a genetically healthy and diverse population has a greater chance of survival in the wild.