A RARE SPECIES GETS A SECOND CHANCE: Twenty-five years after the blacks-footed ferret was rediscovered in the wild, a successful captive-breeding program is giving the endangered animal a new lease on life

摘要

If not for the unlikely duo of Shep and Scarface, the black-footed ferret might be just a distant memory, gone forever from the prairie lands of North America. Indeed, three decades ago scientists could not find any of the creatures surviving in the Great Plains region, where as many as half a million once played a key role in the ecosystem by keeping prairie dog populations in check. Some experts believed the continent's only native ferret was extinct. Then Shep, a ranch dog in Meeteetse, Wyoming, changed their minds.