Black-Footed Ferret: The Comeback Kid

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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ebony Money and I'm Rick Schwartz. Welcome to Amazing Wildlife, where we explore unique stories of wildlife from around the world and uncover fascinating animal facts. This podcast is a production of I Heart Radio and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, in international nonprofit conservation organization behind the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park. They once numbered in the tens of thousands, But what caused North America's black footed ferret to practically disappear? Today we're talking to San Diego Zoo wildlack Aelians conservation partner US Fish and Wildlife Service about what happened to the black footed ferret populations and the innovative scientific techniques being used to help bring them back, including the first ever cloning of the species. But first, what is a black footed ferret? Hey, Rick, I'm going to toss that question over to you. What's the best way to describe? Oh? Boy, come on, Athony, why don't even start. I mean, they're incredibly adorable but also powerful carnivorous predators. Now, they're about nineteen long and have about a five to six inch tail, and they only wave about one and a half to two pounds. Oh and they have short legs too, they're kind of close to the ground. For those of you that are dog lovers, think the body type of adshund if you will, and their coloration, it's kind of hard to describe it. I'll give it a try. Their coat is short and sleek, it's kind of close to the body, and they have a beige sandy color to their body that's almost dark brown on the back and lighter on the belly. They're white on the forehead and muzzle and throat. But oh my gosh, you've got this cute little black mask. It's kind of like a raccoon, a little bandit face, you know. And as you might guess thanks to their name, they have black on their lower legs and feet. See Rick, you mentioned the dots in or the hot dog as we used to call it as when I was a kid. But for me, when I see the ferret, I think of a cat. I think it looks like more like that an elongated cat, like a cross between maybe a cat and a weasel. What are its closest relatives? Well, that's that's a pretty good description everything. I think an elongated cat is not too far off the mark, because some of their colorations look like some breeds of certain cats. So when I worked with ferrets and worked in the children's of the San Diego Zoo, a lot of times kids look at them and the way they moved, and they describe them as a slinky with fur and legs, which isn't too far off because they're very flexible. But to answer your question, they are in the same scientific family as the weasel and mink. So just like the mink, they are long in skinning their their bodies really perfect for maneuvering down the tunnels of their prey. In fact, the spine is so flexible they can even turn around one degrees and very tight tunnels where most animals would just need to back out. That's pretty amazing. So speaking of cats, when I was getting ready for this discussion and doing some research, because yes, these are goes into some of these conversations, UM, I was thinking, like, how did it come to be that we domesticated something like a cat versus a faret. Well, I think the answer here might surprise you emany. I think if you would have actually looked further into the domestication of the faret you, but would have found out that about two thousand, five years ago, people did start trying to domesticate ferrets and they were used as hunting companions. So now fast forward to today. There are different theories out there as to what species of faret was used, but most agree it's the European ferret known as the European pole cat. It's a species that everyone kind of really agrees on the domestic faret came from. But to be clear, domestication isn't just bringing a wild animal into your home and feeding it, which is really a bad idea about the way, so don't ever try that. In its simplest terms of the process of domestication involves selective breeding across several generations, and it takes a long time, sometimes hundreds or thousands of generations. And even then, the domestic faret of today isn't always as domestic acting as your house cat or your family dog. Now, to be honest, I do some light research, I should clarify saying light research. So to clarify further, in general, you're saying farets are not recommended for pets. Yes, that's exactly true. Farets have a wide variety of special needs that are unique to them and can end up being quite a bit of a challenge for someone who's just looking for a cuddly pet to have it at home. I recommend anyone looking for a pet just go to your local shelter and rescue a dog or cat in need of a loving home, and you'll have the best buddy for life. Amazing. I'm in the process of doing that right now. Actually, so you mentioned that blackfooted farets there are cute and they stand low to the ground. What else makes a farets stand out? Well, I'm really glad you asked that. I mean, because, first and foremost, it's worth noting that this particular species of fairret is only native to North America, and specifically they are endemic to the grassland prairies, so a very specific environment. You see, the blackfooted ferret is entirely dependent on a healthy prairie dog population because prairie dogs make up about their diet. Now, the other thing that makes them really special, and I think others would agree with me on this one. It was believed that they had gone extinct completely in nineteen eighty when the last one in human care passed away from old age. But in one a small population was found in Wyoming by though their numbers were dwindling to In fact, they were down to just eighteen individuals. So those individuals were brought into human care to be the founders of the recovery program we have today. That's amazing. Rick I was also surprised to learn that black footed ferrets are carnivorous. Just looking at them, I think that they would be more like squirrels and eat plants and maybe small insects, But it turns out that black footed ferrets eat squirrels. Is there any correlation between the size of a species and its diet. Well, first off, you're you're right. You know, they're very cute and fluff you Like I mentioned, they're they're adorable. But they're not much bigger than a squirrels, you know, Like we talked about their size and their weight, They're just not these huge animals that you think of when you think of a predator. But they are true carnivores, like you said, and they have incredibly powerful jaws for their size. If you were to look at a picture of one even you'd see the rounded head. That's because of all the muscle that's in there for closing that jaw down, and they're tenacious. They have an attitude that really packs a punch right behind that jaw and those teeth, so they're pretty much the paving of a predator. Now, as far as the correlation between size of a species and its diet, I offer you this to think about. Both the elephant and the mouse are herbivores, and for as small as the black footed faret is, there's even a smaller carnivore known as the least weasel. It's in the same family as the black footed ferret, and this guy only weighs in it about seven ounces, that's less than half a pound. So carnivores come in all shapes and sizes. That's so interesting. We mentioned that the black foot farets eats squirrels, what else do they eat? And one thing we haven't talked about what eats them? Yes, the food chain question. You know, it really is fascinating how it all works, and being a carnivore with a high metabolism. Blackfooted ferrets will eat any small animals they can catch, including mice, rats, ground squirrels, lizard birds, even rabbits. But the most important part of their diet is the prairie dog. Prairie dogs make up the majority of their diets, so much so that a scientist who studied them estimated that one ferret will eat over one prairie dogs in just a year. As for animals that the black footed faret has to look out for because they're preying on them, well, they have to be on the lookout for predators on the ground and the sky. Anything from kyotes and badgers to bobcats would be happy to hunt them on the ground and in the sky. We're talking owls and golden eagles and possibly even hawks. It is so when we talk about what praise on black footed ferrets were highlighting just one obstacle the blackfoot of faret would face in nature. What are some of the other obstacles that have, unfortunately contributed to the decline of the species. Yeah, I think it's fair to say having other animals hunt you would be an obstacle, especially when you're the size of a black footed faret. But you're right, Ebony, they do face many other obstacles in the wild. It's worth noting though, in a healthy and balanced ecosystem, predators and prey interaction is normal. It helps keep things in balance. It's when other obstacles come up that aren't part of the natural ecosystem that we see these populations declined. And so for the blackfooted ferret, the primary reasons the species remains endangered are the same that nearly caused them to go extinct, disease, loss of habitat, and then the related declines of prey in that habitat, like the prairie dog and rick as you just mentioned. Um. Scientists and conservationists often speak about the importance of an ecosystem and an importance of a species to a particular ecosystem. What exactly is an ecosystem in the case of a blackfoot of faret and how does the black footed ferret help its ecosystem? Yeah, and I think that's something that a lot of us in the animal world kind of take for granted that that's an understood what what an ecosystem is, So let me kind of break it down just basically, it's defined as a community of organisms and their environment. The living organisms such as plants and animals, interacting with each other and with other non living things like water, soil, and air. A healthy and balanced ecosystem is important for all life on our planet, including humans. In the case of the blackfooted faret, like all predators, they help keep the balance in their native ecosystem. As a predator, they keep the herbivore populations healthy by praying on the sick and injured or weak individuals and for quickly reproducing species like the rodent. Predators like the blackfooted faret helped prevent a population boom that would then be detrimental to the plants and other animals in the ecosystem. And coming up, we're talking to US Fish and Wildlife Service about partnering with San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and other organizations. We'll be talking about recovery efforts and about what it takes to reintroduce blackfooted fair populations back to nature. But first this it's time for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance minute good News or an ambitious effort to rescue four tiny birds deep in a Hawaiian rainforest. In December one, a six month old chick was safely rescued on Kawaii and flown by helicopter to a neighboring island. The chicken its family are believed to be among the last living ki ki ki, also known as the Hawaiian honey creeper, a critically endangered species driven to the brink of extinction by malaria, an unfortunate consequence of climate change and fun fact for you. Unlike other colorful honey creepers found on the island of Kawaii, yaki ki ki is a pale, gray and white now they usually are seen traveling and foraging in pairs or in family groups in the forest and eat invertebrates which they find by pecking and pulling at the bark of tree, snags and tree trunks. We're talking about the endangered blackfooted ferret. Now we have two people joining the conversation. Pete gober with US Fish and Wildlife Service and Dr Oliver Writer, director of Conservation Genetics at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, which, among other things, expands and curates the frozen Zoo. Welcome, Mr Gobert and Dr Wrider, Thanks so much for being with us. Dr Writer. What is a frozen zoo? The frozen zoo is an umbrella term for preserving genetic diversity in a form that can be used in the future, and it that can be in the form of living cells or of reproductive cells like gam meats that is, eggs and sperm, or it could be frozen tissues or d NA. But for the purposes of today's conversation, we should focus on the fact that the Frozen Zoo is a collection of living cells that are kept extremely cold temperatures so that the cells are basically in a state of suspended animation and can be kept for literally thousands of years and then thought and grow again and continue their cellular functions. This process makes cloning possible. Zare can you tell us in basic terms, doctor writer, what is cloning? What does it mean to clone an animal? The clone is an identical copy, and most people are familiar with cloning, but they know about identical twins in humans or their wildlife enthusiasts. Maybe they know that the nine banded armadillo always has identical quadruplets. These are individuals that are descended from the same UH cell, and so clones are identical copies. And it's now possible to make clones from cells that have been frozen like that are in the Frozen Zoo. Wonderful, Now, let's have Mr Gobert joined the conversation. Mr Gober's with us fish and Wildlife Services, which is working alongside with recovery partners and scientists to explore solutions to genetic diversity challenges and disease resistance or blackfooted ferrets. Mr Gober, what exactly is being done? Can you talk to us about the program that you lead? Yes, ma'am, I suppose we're on the other end of the spectrum from the folks that are working at the sub cellular level and even below that it's a sub gene level to try to contribute to conservation. We're largely focused on the population of various species that are in danger of extinction, namely the blackfooted ferret in particular, and a number of factors over time influenced its decline as a population. There was a good bit of farming that destroyed his habitat livestock raising, where livestock operators control prairie dogs, which are the principal prey of ferrets and provide their homes as far excavations in the prairie. Prairie dog numbers declined because of that poisoning and then the introduction inadvertent introduction of the disease sobietic plague, and in North America, calls further declines and prairie dog numbers and both ferrets and prairie dogs are affected by this disease. Yes, and let's tell you folks about that. So there was a win for the most endangered mammal in the U s which is the b f F the blackfoot of ferret um. Since nineteen sixty nine, the blackfoot of ferret has been listed as endangered except for several populations that were designated as experimental. But scientists didn't give up so easily. They successfully cloned and endangered blackfooted ferret using frozen cells of a wild ferret that had died decades earlier. You were talking about that, Mr Gilbert Um, can we talk about the the significance of Elizabeth Ann Well. We thought the faret was inked, as you mentioned back in the sixties because of all the factors that I've mentioned previously, and then one last population was found in northwestern Waomi and we had another chance. We almost fubbled that along the way, but we were fortunate enough to get the last eighteen animals captured. Only seven animals contributed to the captive breeding program. We have raised ferrets for nearly forty years now at the National Blackfoot of Fairy Conservation Center run by the Fish and Wildlife Service in Colorado and cooperatively with our principal partner in the early days while we game in fish, but there are a number of other zoos involved in the program across the country. Over ten thousand kids baby ferrets have been born during that period of time, and they're quite similar genetically, and genetic diversity is being lost over time. So there are a number of factors that we've got to address. But our biggest obstacle is making sure these animals, when we put them back out in the wild, reproduce the following spring. Their short lived species turnovers pretty fast in their population, but every place we put them out over the past few decades they've had young in the spring. Keeping them on the ground is the big challenge, and you need a broad diverse genetic background to respond the whole host of environmental challenges. But the principle one we're worried about is this exotic disease so that it plagued so adding diversity back into the genetic line. We only had seven founders. Elizabeth Ann adds an eighth founder and provides the theoretical genetic diversity. We need to address some of these challenges long term, but the most exciting thing for me is the fact that it broadens opportunities for advancement and technologies that may be able to address this disease issue. If we could somehow confer immunity on ferrets in the wild over time through some inheritable trait, that would be fantastic and would probably addressed the principal problem with limiting recovery and delisting of the species where it would no longer be an endangered species in the wild. And dr writer, can you add to that? So what's the importance of genetic diversity and how does that connect to disease in in species? Thank you, Ebony, Well, it was such an exciting development when a native North American species thought to be extinct was rediscovered, and the excitement around that extended over several years. But then there was a calamitous event with the extinction of the wild population due to canine distemperate disease. And as Pete Gober has said, all blackfooted ferrets living today except one come from only seven individuals, and this is over many, many generations, so they have lost their genetic diversity they're related on a ridges is more than double first cousins, and their genetic resilience, which is basically the capital of their in their bank to respond to diseases and environmental challenges, has been eroded. But there is one individual that's not related to all of the rest of the ferrets in the world today, and that's Elizabethan. And that's because cells were saved from an email named Willa who has caught in the wild um but sure she has no descendants in the living population. Elizabeth Ann is now her clone and can restore genetic diversity that was present decades ago back into the population. This is called genetic rescue. It's been done on other species by translocating animals. There are no new ferrets to translocate into the population, but the chance to translocate an animal who cells are stored in the freezer back into the living population is really a conservation innovation and one of the first opportunities to explore this potential is now in this program and cooperation with multiple partners to produce the clone that's named Elizabeth and to restore her genetic variation and to address the larger concern that Pete gober raised about the vulnerability of black footed ferrets in the wild to disease. Any effort to produce an immunity of ferrets is going to uh through that is heritable, is going to have to involve cloning technology. So this is a very important step in the long term goal to produce a population in the wild of blackfooted ferrets that are no longer susceptible to sylvatic plague. And Mr Gobert, you were going to add, well, I was gonna ask Oliver to tell the story because he was there when it happened. As far as cells being conserved, well, yes, um, Dr Writer, you were part of the team that save the genes of the blackfooted farret by successfully freezing the living cells before cloning was even possible. Can you tell us be the story behind that and and what was the thinking process? Was there just a hope that technology would would one day catch up? What was the motivation? With so few ferrets, there was an inevitability that the population could become in bred. And it's important to know the vulnerability of the species and from a standpoint of its ecology in the wild, but also in its genetic makeup and living cells are an avenue to understanding genetic makeup because they are there is a pository for the d n A that's the blueprint of a species. So I played just a lucky happenstance role that I happened to meet the head of the program at the time being in Wyoming at a conference, and sat down with him in the evening and said, you know, every one of these ferrets is valuable even after it dies, because we can establish cell cultures that we can learn more about the species. No, at the time, we didn't know that cloning would be possible, but we banked the cells, and the team here in the Frozen Zoo lab was successful in banking those cells and being the first people to study the chromosomes of the blackfooted ferret that's where the DNA lives in the cells. And then later Dolly happened, and all of a sudden, the possibility of producing a living animal that had the genetic makeup of the animal it died arose and it's startling and it's remarkable, and it's taken a whole team to make this happen. But it really depends on the fact that we have been banking living cells from animals, not always knowing what the full potential of their use might be, but knowing that we had a special opportunity in our time to bank these for present conservation and future conservation activities. How frequently does something like this happen? How significant is an Elizabeth Ann's story. It is complicated ebony, and we can't clone all species yet, but we do know that in the case of mammal species, that each cell that we have frozen is capable of producing an animal if it's properly treated. That is, if it's used in what we call somatic cell nuclear transfer cloning. But that hasn't been explored in many species of conservation concern, and there are many species of conservation concern for which cells haven't been banked, and there are still significant technical challenges to do this in species other than mammals. So it's a great opportunity for scientific progress to be made and for people who are young scientists who are interested in conservation to make a contribution that will allow the work that's already been done to reach a full potential, and also to stimulate efforts to bank cells from other species so that there would be options in the future. Mr Gilbert, there was an exciting milestone recently with Elizabeth Anne turning one. How did you feel about that milestone? Was it a significant one for her to survive to year one? Well, every partner in the program will have a little different perspective, just like I mentioned the population biologist, or the veterinarian or the genesis. We should point out in particular that these things happened serendipitously, as as only mentioned, and also Budge as and Planning. One of our partners, Ryan Feelings and Revive and Restore often says that we're all afraid of unintended consequences when we conduct science and the various experiments, But intended consequences can provide benefits too. I like the homily of a cat never sets on a hot stove twice, but then again he never sets on a coal one either, So you've got to keep striving and trying for more. The Fishing Wildlife Service really acted just as a coordinating body. We have the captive colony affairs where we were able to raise Elizabethan, but Revive and Restore acted as a catalyst to bring San Diego and the Service and a private company all together. So It's quite a consortium of different interests, as I've mentioned, and I think everybody was excited about it in their own way, because this doesn't happen every time you try, so it was a pretty extraordinary experiment. We only have one clone. We're look geting to produce additional clones and trying to figure out a better way to do it. So it was a remarkable thing. And the fact that she made it to a year to maturity, because as I said, this is a short lived species. She's ready to breed herself this coming spring. We hope to be fortunate enough to have it offspring from Elizabeth and and produce additional clones down the road. There's so much effort going into ensuring that BFFs can make a comeback. Mr Gobert, where does this belief or hope come from. As I mentioned earlier, every time we put ferrets out at thirty two different sites in eight states, Mexico and Canada, they always have young the following spring. The fight is to keep them on the landscape because of this introduced exotic disease. So we think eventually, if we figure out a good way to manage plague, ferrites will manage on their own because they've hitched their wagon to a species. As far as where they live and what they eat, Prairie dogs are about nine of their diet, and prairie dogs will make it through drought and fire and other impacts on the environment, and ferrets will make it right along with them, as long as we can figure out a way to put them back on the landscape where disease has taken them out. This question will be for both of you, Mr. Gobert, as well as Dr. Writer. You've worked with the species, You've studied the species. What about the blackfooted ferret impresses you and motivates your interest in its conservation. One of the things about the species that impresses me is their grace, their beauty, their tenacity. The clone of black footed ferret captivated the world and afforded new possibilities. She's a sweet looking animal, but you don't want to try to pet her. She's a wild animal, and that wildness that allows them to survive and catch and eat animals that are bigger than they are. You have to respect their capabilities as predators. It's our responsibility, I feel, to try to conserve them and keep those animals on the landscape, and to keep all of the species that are interdependent on the landscape so that the beauty of this area is maintained and can be appreciated for the unique place in the world that it is. In its own way, the black footed ferret is kind of the top of its food chain. I mean, think of the lion in the serengetti that kind of dominates all the other animals, and as representative of that whole ecosystem. The faret is only a couple of pounds and its praise only a couple of pounds the prarie dog, but they represent so much more. Like Ali said, I mentioned that this species occurred from Canada to Mexico and from the mid part of the continent west into the inner mountain basins. If you conserve the blackfooted ferret, you're gonna have to conserve prairie dogs. And if you conserve prairie dogs, the coat tail effector dragging along several dozen other species is going to be there. And that's most exciting thing about ferret recovery to me is if you save the ferry, you save all the animals that live where it lives. And so what's next. In the efforts to save the blackfooted ferret, Mr. Goburg. As far as the next steps, I think we stay at it. The American West is still wild and open and big, and there are places to put ferrets out there and to conserve prairie dogs, where we can conserve thousands and tens of thousands of other species all in the same places. But we've got to be persistent to do that. It took a hundred and fifty years to wreck this ecosystem and we've only been at it forty as far as trying to piece it back together, and it may take us quite a bit longer, but we should stay at it. So lastly, this question is for you both, what's the threshold for conservation success when it comes to the BFF the blackfooted ferry? Well, I can jump in with recovery goals established by the Fish and Wildlife Service and accepted by many of our partners. We have fifty partners with the states, tribes and NGOs, and private landowners all across the West. We're never going to maintain or restore the way things were before we settled this country, but we're hoping to have a representative remnant ability to put at least several thousand ferrets on the landscape. This disease of adding plague is never going to go away. We're not going to rewind the clock and walk away and expect to keep on ticking forever. If you disturb a system as much as we've disturbed this system, it will require continuing management for the long term. But there are a lot of partners interested in this because it benefits so many other species. So I think we have a chance to keep people engage the persistence of the zoos continuing to breed these animals and provide and for reintroduction. The persistence of the states and tribes and all the other folks to put them out on the landscape and monitoring over decades is really remarkable. As an Admiral Asketh said, there's a lot of thought that's on into what it would take to say that we've addressed the proximate threats to dangerment of the blackfooted ferret in iterations of documents and regulations in the Recovery plan of the Endangered Species Act of the United States. And that's a remarkable accomplishment that we have yet to fully realize. And the threshold is that we keep at it. The threshold is is that we know we have the possibility to do it, and as we demonstrate our care for nature and for our natural resources and for our wildlife. The blackfooted farets don't occur anywhere else in the world but in North America, and we have the opportunity now and the potential and the obligation to pass them on so that years from now, in the future, they will be part of a landscape. The landscape won't be the same as it was in the hundreds of years ago, but there will still be the components that were in it for us to appreciate and to create that unique system that still is the kind of the hallmark of the wide open spaces of the West. We broke it, we should fix it. That's a good way to wind it up. Well, good luck and thank you both Mr gober and Dr Rider for talking with us today and getting us up to speed about what's being done to bring back the black footed ferret. And happy belated birthday, Elizabeth Ann. That wraps up this episode. We hope you learned a lot about North America's only native ferret. I'm Epenny Money and I'm Rich Schwartz. Thanks for listening, be sure to subscribe and tune into next week's episode, in which we bring you the story of a unique parrot species that has the nickname snow parrot because they love of living in the higher altitudes. For more information about the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park, go to sdz w a dot org. Amazing Wildlife is a production of I Heart Radio. Our producer is Nikia Swinton, Our executive producer is Marci de Pina. Our audio engineer and editor is Amita Gnatra. For more shows for my Heart Radio, check out the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.