I wanted to inform everybody that Texas Parks and Wildlife is spearheading a reintroduction of the Black Footed Ferret on the Rita Blanca National Grasslands. If they do this under their current proposal it would shut down 50% of the prairie dog hunting currently available to public hunters.

We need to spread the word about this. Contact Texas State officials and TPWD personnel and voice your opinion about this.

To give you a little history about the black footed ferret; It was once thought to be extinct till a small population was discovered in Wyoming. Through a captive breeding program they started reintroducing them in 1991. In order to get them delisted they must have 3000 ferrets living in the wild. Since 2008 they have released almost 2500 ferrets.

Currently they estimate 400-500 living in the wild. They are currently spending about $44000 -$55000 per ferret with a $1,000,000 per year budget.

This project is headed by the Black-Footed Ferret Working Group, which consists of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas Wildlife Services, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Natural Resource Conservation Service, Texas Agri-Life Extension and researchers from Texas Tech and West Texas A&M Universities.

I personally don't care if they are trying to reintroduce the ferret but do it on private land that doesn't affect the public.

We need to nip this crap in the bud before it starts!
That kinda money would be a typical Govt. Waste Project. worse than $900 hammers & $1200 Toilet seats.
The money would be much more usefull for Youth Hunts & the Lottery style hunts that TP&W offers on State Parks & Wildlife Management Areas. Stock more fish, manage better Deer Herds. Hell, buy more Wildlife Mngt Areas! Fugg the Black Footed Ferrets!

Sean Kyle [email protected] is the Texas state biologist in charge of this.



I know he is busy with the Lesser Prairie Chicken deal and may not be aware of the concern from the public and needs to be. I encourage everybody to email him and let him know your thoughts.


[email protected]

These geniuses who tinker with Nature should be made aware of the happenings in the Conata Basin by the SD Badlands.

Introduction of ferrets and a shooting (and poison) ban led to a hefty overpopulation which then was an easy mark for the plague.

Some internet research should yield results. I had seen a newspaper at the time showing workers dusting burrows in an attempt to control fleas which carry the plague.

HM

They got the blackfooted ferret reintroduced in a few counties in Kansas about four years ago. As soon as a ferrett is spotted in a new area the dog shooting ends. Stop it while you can fellas. They should just plant them across the border, they would multiply faster and would just end up here anyway.

I'm a hunter, shooter,and conservationist. I am not a preservationist. I believe if a species can't make it on their own they should be let go if they can't adapt. That's what happened to the dinosaurs, mammoths, saber toothed tiger and hundreds if not thousands of other critters. It is natures way of change. Some creatures adapt and survive. The flickers, a wood pecker, are changing to ground feeders. Gators and turtles have been around forever. "Serpents" go back to Adam and Eve.

Yes, certainly protect species from over harvest, but don't spend millions on others that Mother Nature doesn't want. As previous posts have said, the money could be better spent.

Here in Lower Michigan, I can't tell you how much is spent annually to maintain young Jackpine forests for the Kirtland's Warbler.....a few hundred breeding birds. I'm a birder and former bird bander, but it is still my belief that if they can't make it on their own, LET THEM GO.

Pete

Why do they nix the prairie dog shooting?

Are PD's the favored food of the ferret, or do they assume hunter's can't distinguish the two?

I don't know for sure, but I would believe the PD would be at the top of their menu. But, if you look at it another way, with the widespread prevalence of prairie dogs why are they endangered? Something else has to be the factor, not food supply.

I have chickens, Long Tailed Weasels, Short Tailed Weasels and Least Weasels. I also have a lot of dead weasels. Nuff said.

Pete

Yes

In that case, shouldn't we shoot more PD's, and let the ferrets feast on their carcasses?

PD are a favored prey of the Black Footed Ferret. The ferret was transplanted in Montana's CMR some years ago. The only problem was the coyotes were eating them as fast as they were put there. So a season was opened up for coyotes on the refuge. The BLM tried to close down PD shooting outside the refuge, but I haven't heard anything about it lately.

Both, but I believe #2 is the reason prairie dog shooting gets nixed.

We were out in Wall SD back in 79 and asked the F&G guy about the ferret thing and he got about pissed and said there had been NO PROFF that anybody had shot any of the ferrets. I don't think the guys with boots on the ground like it any more than we do. We were about the last year to shoot right against the bad lands fence. GREAT shooting and LOTS of dogs. Then they poisoned them and they were all gone. MANAGMENT !!

The brain trust did that in Utah some years back. An area I used to shoot pds became off limits. And the place is called "coyote canyon." You gotta wonder why they'd introduce an endangered species to a place with that name. Years before there'd been decent shooting in that area, but prairie dogs had dwindled to almost nothing by the time ferrets were brought in. There was almost nothing for them to prey on. After a year or so, the ferrets were mostly gone. Either no pds to eat, or they were coyote food, or both. Those animals cost the taxpayer something like $50,000 apiece. These are the same geniuses who brought wolves to Idaho? They shouldn't be in charge of anything......they should be working at McDonald's.

Uh. First of all. For those that mention things like Mother Nature or Natural in the same sentence as plague...well, you just amaze me. Plague is old world -and you can find no colonial rodents where it originated. It came across on our ships (rats, etc.)and prairie dogs and ferrets simply cannot handle it. And viable populations of ferrets need certain size towns and minimal distances between colonies and we all know that situation isn't abundant everywhere anymore. So Mother Nature did not not take out the ferret at all.

And we all know that many hunters make us all look bad. Yes, some bubba will pop ferrets if they get the chance.

Under the experimental, non essential designation, ferrets are not protected outside the designated release area and there cannot be, by law, subsequent closures of hunting or poisoning in those areas by the FWS. Now, individual land management entities can do it on there own decision, but it has nothing to do with the Endangered Species Act.

There are many of these successful restoration sites and the landowners grow to be proud of them, and communities do to. And guess what? We'll still be shooting prairie dogs. Might be a few miles away from where we did, but it'll be fine. Study up on this, guys.

Yes, ferrets feed mostly on prairie dogs. They are so small that most kills have to be in a burrow where the ferret can "pin" a prairie dog, which weighs similar to the ferret.

There are many natural predators of ferrets, just as there are with prairie dogs, but the biologists know how many ferrets are needed to establish these populations, despite predation (which ferrets are no stranger, too). Yow its a rough life.

And $$$. Dang. Everything is subsidized: wind turbines, agriculture, everything.

Geniuses? McDonalds. Are you kidding me?

I grew up at nearby Dalhart and am a shooter, but I'm not gonna be a Bubba about this.

Uh....this was a goatphuck, the money was wasted.



Yeah I'm kidding. Those wildlife guys should be doing something else.

Wasted? Well, there are black-footed ferrets in the wild now and the captive program is doing so good that they need locations to release them.

The program in Eastern Utah was money wasted.

Ted Turner has a farm for these critters up at Vermejo. The fence is buried in the ground and must be about 20 acres. Prarrie dogs live all around it. Only problem is the PD 's share the land with 2000 buffalo and there is not a blade of grass for miles . Only good thing is he's using his own money . He has a scientist look after his black footed ferrets on a daily bassis must cost a fortune but on his own dime.

I didn't know you could shoot prairie dogs there until I read this! It seems like I'm always too late to find out this stuff. I let my pointer out to pee there one time and saw a bunch of prairie dogs and a coyote chased my dog around.

Is it legal to shoot coyotes on Rita Blanca?