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Black-footed Ferret — printable fact sheet
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Black-footed Ferret
Mustela nigripes
The black-footed ferret has been declared extinct twice. After the second time, in 1981, it was rediscovered by accident: a ranch dog named Shep in Meeteetse, Wyoming, killed one and brought it home, revealing a last surviving colony. Eighteen animals were taken into captivity, …
Did you know?
- The species was declared extinct in the wild in 1987, but all existing black-footed ferrets today descend from just seven individuals found in Wyoming.
- In 2020 a female named Elizabeth Ann became the first cloned endangered species native to the United States, produced from cells frozen in 1988 that belong to a founder whose genes were never represented in the living population — a deliberate attempt to add genetic diversity back to the species. Black-footed ferrets are almost entirely nocturnal and spend roughly 21 hours a day underground. A single ferret needs on the order of a hundred acres of active prairie dog colony to feed itself for a year.
What I learned
Draw the black-footed ferret
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