Friday, October 16, 2009

Ferret update

Black footed ferrets are back in the news as this month saw the first reintroduction of the ferrets to Canada. They were last seen anywhere in Canada in 1937 !

As I mentioned in class the species was considered extinct until a colony was discovered in Wyoming in 1981. (It was actually discovered because a dog killed one of the ferrets and brought it home....).

In the US black footed ferrets are in the news because conservation groups have sued the Environmental Protection Agency for its decision to register pesticides that kill prairie dogs, the main source of food for the endangered black-footed ferret.

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