Vaccinating Black-Footed Ferrets

Black-footed ferrets — America’s only native ferret species — nearly went extinct several times in the 20th century. When animals from a critical breeding program were finally reintroduced to the wild, the first indigenous community to welcome and restore the ferrets was on Ft. Belnap Reservation in Montana.

Today, now decades later, members of that same community protect support the endangered ferrets by tracking them at night, capturing them, and vaccinating the ferrets against a non-native disease that remains the greatest threat to their survival.