DID WE SEE A BLACK-FOOTED FERRET AT CASTLE GARDENS, WYOMING?

Castle Gardens, Wyoming.

Location of Castle Gardens, Wyoming.

In September 1992 a group from the Colorado Archaeological Society was visiting the wonderful rock art site of Castle Gardens, Wyoming. At one point while looking at a petroglyph panel two or three of us saw a movement out of the corner of our eye, low down on the ground and to the left, which drew our attention. Looking that way we saw just a flash of a small, low (short-legged), long-bodied animal run behind a rock formation. None of us got a good enough look to see details, but, having seen weasels before my first and immediate impression was that it was a member of that family (Mustelidae). Its color was a light tan, not the darker brown of a mink or a weasel. It was also not the white of a short-tailed weasel or ermine in winter colorization (as this was September they would have still been wearing their summer coat of white neck, chest, and underbelly, and medium to dark brown elsewhere). This was definitely a light tan color.

Black-footed ferret. Internet photograph, public domain.

“The ferret was first described by John James Audubon and John Bachman in 1851 from a single specimen collected from Goshen County, Wyoming. By the mid 1900s, historical eradication campaigns, diseases, and habitat loss through cropland conversion had drastically reduced populations of prairie dogs, the primary prey species for ferrets. As prairie dogs declined, ferrets were predicted to be near extinction. In 1967, the ferret was federally listed as Endangered throughout its range in Wyoming and 11 other western and Midwestern states under the Endangered Species Act. Within 1 year of this designation, all wild ferrets from the last known population in Mellette County, South Dakota died, and by 1979 the last ferret in captivity also perished. Despite nearly a decade (1973-1981) of targeted searches throughout Wyoming and adjacent states, no other populations were found, leading many to believe that the ferret was extinct.

In 1981, a fortuitous event occurred that irrefutably saved the ferret from extinction and initiated one of the most successful wildlife conservation stories in history. On 26 September 1981, a rancher’s cattle dog brought the carcass of a weasel-like animal to the doorstep. A local taxidermist identified the species as a ferret, and soon thereafter biologists discovered a population of ferrets in the surrounding area.” (Wyoming Black-Footed Ferret Management Plan 2018:2-3)

With the rediscovery of this remaining wild population a captive-breeding program was undertaken to save the species. “A captive-breeding program launched by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service resulted in its reintroduction into eight western US states, Canada, and Mexico from 1991 to 2009.” (Wikipedia)

“In 1991, the first reintroduction site for ferrets was established at the Shirley Basin/Medicine Bow Reintroduction Site.” (Wyoming Black-Footed Ferret Management Plan 2018:4)  It seems highly unlikely that a ferret reintroduced to the wild in 1991 at the Shirley Basin/Medicine Bow Site would have appeared at Castle Gardens in September 1992 with a distance of over one hundred miles between them, so our assumption is that there were, in fact, other wild ferrets that had remained undiscovered.

“As of 2011, over 1,000 mature, wild-born individuals are in the wild across 18 populations, with four self-sustaining populations in South Dakota, Arizona, and Wyoming.” (Wikipedia) Hopefully, the future of the Black-footed ferret in the wild is now assured.

Shield petroglyph with two long, slender animals. Castle Gardens, Wyoming. Photograph Peter Faris, September 1992.

Close-up of shield petroglyph with two long, slender ferret-like animals. Castle Gardens, Wyoming. Photograph Peter Faris, September 1992.

Another shield petroglyph with two long, slender ferret-like animals. Castle Gardens, Wyoming. Photograph Peter Faris, September 1992.

Close-up of another shield petroglyph with two long, slender ferret-like animals. Castle Gardens, Wyoming. Photograph Peter Faris, September 1992.

Castle Gardens is known for its grand displays of petroglyphs, many of them shield designs. One of these has a head with horns (a horned-headdress?) flanked by two slender, long-bodied animals oriented vertically on each side, and another has two slender, long-bodied animals vertically and opposite each other without the head in between, like mirror images of each other. Without enough details to further identify these animal portrayals, their shape alone makes the possibility that they are meant to portray a weasel or ferret, a real option that must be considered. This suggests that the Ancestral Native peoples here who made the shield petroglyphs must have been familiar with the black-footed ferret, the country is the same as the environment they used to thrive in and the pictures are here.

So, the upshot of this is that we three observers are convinced that in 1992 we saw petroglyphs at Castle Gardens that portray ferrets as designs on shields, as well as seeing a live, wild black-footed ferret at Castle Gardens, a place where, and at a time when, they were supposedly extinct. Quite a memory.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Anonymous, 2018, Wyoming Black-Footed Ferret Management Plan, 24 November 2018, Wyoming Game and Fish Commission and Black-Footed Ferret Working Group, State of Wyoming.

Wikipedia, Black-Footed Ferret, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-footed_ferret, accessed on 1 April 2022.