Another beautiful day and another fascinating Wild Fact.  Well, at least I hope it will be fascinating for all of us.  Today’s animal was suggested by my loving mother who happened to watch a show on the Black-Footed Ferret the other day.  It is great when people recommend animals to write about as that really is the toughest part of Wild Facts.  So thank you to my mom and everyone else who brings great suggestions forward.  Now lets get into the nitty gritty of today’s fact.

This may be incredibly shocking to some of you but the Black-Footed Ferret actually has black feet.  I am sorry, I probably should have made sure you were sitting down before I dropped that bombshell on you.  What the name doesn’t tell you is that they also have the mask of a bandit.  Much like the cunning raccoon the Black-Footed Ferret looks like it just got back from a bank heist.

Perhaps this ferret as the mask of a thief for a reason.  You see these adorable little animals use their slender body to sneak into the homes of prairie dogs.  Once inside the Black-Footed Ferret will help themselves to your TV, the jar of money on the top of the fridge and yes even the crystal serving dish you received on your wedding day, which incidentally you will only use if the Queen happens to pop over for dinner one night.  Of course, none of this is true, the Black-Footed Ferret is simply breaking into the prairie dogs home so they can find a nice snack which just happens to be the prairie dog.  I am sure they would have preferred the ferret to just take the crystal bowl instead.

As you can imagine the success of the Black-Footed Ferret depends heavily on the population of the prairie dog.  Unfortunately, during the 20th century prairie dogs were hunted and destroyed since their elaborate underground homes caused havoc to farmer fields. This huge decline almost wiped out our ferret friends by 1987.  Luckily a captive breeding program began and the Black-Footed Ferret is now being successfully re-introduced into the wild.  As you can imagine, the success rate is low in some cases as a result of disease, predators and of course the lack of survival skills.  I am willing to bet that it would have been a whole lot easier to just not wipe out the animal to begin with.  The question I have for all of you today is do we ever learn from our past mistakes?

That just about does it for the Black-Footed Ferret.  Enjoy the rest of your day folks.