Posted by Samia Madwar
on Monday, December 05, 2011
Black-footed ferrets are back. Well, almost. They were once extirpated, or extinct in Canada. Thirty-five ferrets were released from captivity into Grasslands National Park in 2009, the first of a series of annual releases to try and reintroduce ferrets into the wild. To check in on the lithe, weasel-like creatures, experts look to black-tailed prairie dogs. These creatures make up 90 percent of the ferrets' diet. Where there is food, there will likely be ferrets. Researchers at the Calgary ...
Posted by Kelly Greig
on Thursday, February 03, 2011
Photo: USFWS Endangered Species/flickr
I have a confession: I’ve always disliked ferrets. A childhood friend had one and I always felt like playing with it was like trying to hold a wriggling furry slinky. Which, needless to say, turned me off of the species pretty quickly.
Despite my aversion, I watched Return of the Prairie Bandit - a documentary that will be airing on The Nature of Things next week. It follows the efforts to re-introduce the black-footed ferret into Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan.
Did you know that sea otters float on their backs in groups called "rafts," sometimes holding paws with fellow otters to avoid drifting apart?
Embracing the notion of power in numbers, this is how they protect themselves against predators such as bald eagles and sharks. Peregrine falcons, for their part, are consummate creatures of habit, regularly returning to the same nesting sites. Falcon pairs have apparently used one site in England for more than 760 years!
Canadian Geographic won the prestigious Magazine of the Year award (for magazines with a circulation of more than 150,000) at a gala in Toronto in June. The award was presented by the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors at the annual MagNet conference.
The distinction caps a string of awards recently received by the magazine and its website. At the National Magazine Awards, also held in Toronto in June, Canadian Geographic’s website garnered two golds: one for the Canadian Geographic Photo Club ...
You may remember our December 2009 dispatch by Candace Savage and Jo-Anne McArthur on the return of the black-footed ferret to Saskatchewan's Grasslands National Park after a 70 year absence.
Due to poisoning of their food source - burrowing prairie dogs - and the habitat they created, the black-footed ferret population in Canada went extinct altogether in 1937. It was only after a small group of seven ferrets were found in Wyoming in 1985 that attempts to restore their populations began.
