Grasslands National Park Welcomes Home the Black-Footed Ferret

Come fall, Grasslands National Park will welcome home the once familiar black-footed ferret. A committee from Parks Canada plans to reintroduce about 40 ferrets back into their southwest Saskatchewan habitat this year, then another 30 to 40 in the fall of 2010 and 2011.

At one point the black-footed ferret was the most endangered mammal in North America. However, thanks to captive breeding the animal’s numbers have risen to an estimated 6,500 from only 130 in the early 1980s.

In order to prepare the ferrets for their new environment they will undergo a “Boot Camp” at a centre in Colorado to learn some natural ways of life.  There they will learn to hunt, live in their burrows and eat live prairie dogs before being driven to Grasslands National Park and released

To learn more about Grasslands National Park of Canada, click here.