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Gulf States News

(National Wildlife Federation)

Conservation Vice President for Kansas Wildlife Federation (KWF), Steven Sorensen, on October 15 attended a historic black footed ferret release in Logan County Kansas. Nineteen ferrets were released in three different areas. The largest area was a 10,000-acre property. KWF has been very supportive of the effort to release ferrets in light of serious issues surrounding prairie dogs – the ferret’s main food source. See the article in the Hays Daily News http://www.hdnews.net/Story/pdogferrets101708.

The former head of the reintroduction program was the keynote speaker at KWF’s annual meeting earlier this year.  There is a lot of opposition to this reintroduction effort.  And an old law in Kansas allows counties to poison prairie dogs without landowner consent.

"A 1901 law gives County officials the right to enter private property without the owner's consent, poison the prairie dogs living there and then bill the landowner for the service."

There have been threats of this kind of thing happening, and the landowners of this particular black footed ferret release are trying to keep the prairie dog colonies well away from the fence lines to avoid agitating neighbors – and thus finding poisoned ferrets along with prairie-dogs.

A pretty rough law, and a challenging place to reintroduce an important member of the wildlife community.  

The Topeka Capital-Journal filed this article in August of 2007 (http://www.cjonline.com/stories/080507/lif_189133314.shtml).