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Mustela nigripes
This one was captured in the Aubrey Valley which is primarily desert grassland.
This was the only animal captured by an army of volunteers and biologists in the two days I spent spotlighting. At the moment of my photo, it was under anesthesia and was slowly recovering. I did not use flash so as not to agitate it. The Black-footed Ferret is an extremely endangered mammal that is native to grasslands in the west US.
5 Comments
Wow! You had a ferret party!
We only caught 2 when I did it, but saw 4 others we couldn't catch. One even popped up in a burrow about 5 ft away while I was talking to someone, and stayed long enough for me to get a cell phone photo!
Hopefully lots more are still hunkered down in the burrows and will be running around during the fall survey!
I would love to do this again, thanks again for the recommendation!
I know. Jennifer Cordova was in charge. She was not happy about the results. Only one other ferret was seen out of everyone. I hope that the Badgers haven't eaten them near to extinction!
Awesome you got to see one, but I can't believe this is the ONLY one caught during the survey! That doesn't seem like a good sign :/
If it's not too far, do the fall survey as well! I would think they would be more active then