Free-spirited Ferrets

On September 23, Grasslands National Park (GNP) in Saskatchewan welcomed 15 new black-footed ferrets courtesy of the Toronto Zoo’s ferret reintroduction program. The team at the zoo made its way to the ideal release location feeling hopeful that these the ferrets will adjust to the landscape. Last October, the zoo successfully bred and released ferrets at this same location, which resulted in tremendous survival success over the winter and producing wild ferret kits born and monitored this summer.

If you aren’t familiar with the history of these ferrets, North America was once home to a thriving black-footed ferret population, which was almost completely wiped out as a result of a widespread plague affecting both the black-footed ferret and its prey, the prairie dog. A small surviving colony was discovered in the 1980s, and since then programs have been put in place to reintroduce the species back to Mexico, the United States and Canada. Having been involved in the reintroduction program for years, the Toronto Zoo celebrated a very special year in 2009 because it was the first year they were breeding and raising ferrets to be released on their own native Canadian soil.

The Canadian Wildlife Federation is providing $29,800 in funding over three years to the Toronto Zoo for the post-release monitoring of black-footed ferrets, as well as new education programs. Monitoring is of the utmost importance to the success of this program. “Monitoring surveys will continue for years to come so that we can do all that is required to ensure a healthy population of black-footed ferrets in Canada,” explains Maria Franke, Curator of Mammals at the Toronto Zoo. Teams of volunteers have been out since last year’s release, trekking across the plains with equipment and tech devices to help them locate and identify ferrets. Here’s hoping they’ll have plenty more ferrets to track and identify this spring.