Of all the communities across America impacted by the government shutdown, the population of endangered black-footed ferrets may be among the smallest and most vulnerable.
This rare species, safeguarded under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, teeters on the brink of extinction, with about 300 existing in the wild.
Now, with biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service furloughed because of the shutdown, a critical release of 400 captive-bred ferrets, designed to strengthen their wild populations, is in jeopardy.
“It just really makes us all very nervous,” said Chamois Andersen, a senior leader at Defenders of Wildlife, a key non-profit partner on the federal agency’s Black-Footed Ferret Recovery Plan. “It’s not something we can play around with, in terms of the timing and the funding. It’s that endangered of a species.”
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The government has been partially shut down for more than a week after a budget standoff in Congress over federal spending limits and extending expiring tax credits for health insurance.
Andersen warns the next two months are critical for successfully introducing the captive ferrets. Fall provides the essential window for new ferrets to hone their hunting skills and begin mating before winter arrives. While many won’t survive the cold, those that do will help stabilize the fragile, wild population.
The Fish and Wildlife Service maintains a captive breeding program facility in Fort Collins, Colorado, where many of the ferrets await release. The facility is currently at full capacity, Andersen said.
While it may be possible to keep the ferrets captive for another year, this uncharted territory risks halting any future breeding efforts until more space becomes available.
“That’s the pipeline of animals going out to the wild,” Andersen said. “Anything that goes wrong with our system could be detrimental to the overall survival of the species.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service referred CBS News to the Department of the Interior, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In prairie environments, such as the Badlands National Park in South Dakota, the black-footed ferret plays an indispensable role controlling the population of prairie dogs, which are known as a keystone species, essential to the health of the entire ecosystem. Without ferrets, unchecked prairie dog colonies can throw the entire system out of balance, impacting dozens of other species.
“I always attribute it to a rug and you have a frayed edge. If you start to pull on that piece of the rug it really unravels fast,” Andersen said. “We just hope there can be some resolve to the shutdown and people can return to their jobs and reintroductions can go on as scheduled.”
