A trio of conservation groups filed a lawsuit in late October against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for “shirking its legal responsibility to recover endangered black-footed ferrets in Wyoming” and violating the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The suit is challenging a 2015 Wyoming rule, which WildEarth Guardians, Western Watersheds Project and Rocky Mountain Wild claim has allowed the state to stall and obstruct ferret reintroductions and recovery. However, USFWS said the rule makes it easier for willing landowners to host ferrets on their property.
“This new rule is a good fit for Wyoming because it builds on voluntary efforts by landowners and recognizes the role they play in species conservation,” said Scott Talbott, then-director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, adding that the final rule should have positive impacts on black-footed ferrets.
However, the groups call the black-footed ferret one of the “most-imperiled mammals in North America” and say ferret populations have been shrinking for over a decade.
The groups say the Wyoming rule—also known as a “10j rule” because it refers to the provision for experimental populations under Section 10(j) of the ESA—provides for no specific reintroductions and gives authority for the ferrets’ recovery to the state of Wyoming. This, the groups say, “(washes) the federal government’s hands of any obligation to act in the best interest of black-footed ferret recovery.”
“Putting the state of Wyoming in charge of black-footed ferret recovery has proven to be the worst possible idea,” said Jennifer Schwartz, staff attorney for WildEarth Guardians. “Black-footed ferrets need large, healthy prairie dog colonies to survive, but Wyoming and its agencies won’t give an inch in their efforts to exterminate prairie dogs.”
Black-footed ferrets depend on prairie dogs for food and their burrows for shelter, so recovering ferrets would also entail protecting prairie dog colonies. The three groups added, “After over a century of shooting, poisoning, plague outbreaks and habitat loss, most prairie dog complexes are now too small to support self-sustaining ferret populations.”— Anna Miller, WLJ managing editor
