The black-footed ferret was thought extinct until 1981 when it was discovered on a Wyoming ranch by a dog named Shep.

This led to a captive breeding and release program by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designed to restore the species to the wild. The black-footed ferret is the focus of major conservation efforts on the ground today due to its endangered status.

Without sustainable populations of their main food source, prairie dogs, black-footed ferrets cannot survive. Over the last 100 years, prairie dog colonies across the West have been plowed and poisoned across vast areas. More than 95% of the historic prairie dog range has been lost.

A new threat is the exotic disease plague, which arrived in North America in the 1900s and can wipe out entire prairie dog colonies. The remaining 2 to 4% of colonies of prairie dogs today are relatively small and fragmented, often separated by great distances.