I wanted to inform everybody that Texas Parks and Wildlife is spearheading a reintroduction of the Black Footed Ferret on the Rita Blanca National Grasslands. If they do this under their current proposal it would shut down 50% of the prairie dog hunting currently available to public hunters.

We need to spread the word about this. Contact your State officials and TPWD personnel and voice your opinion about this.

To give you a little history about the black footed ferret; It was once thought to be extinct till a small population was discovered in Wyoming. Through a captive breeding program they started reintroducing them in 1991. In order to get them delisted they must have 3000 ferrets living in the wild. Since 2008 they have released almost 2500 ferrets.

Currently they estimate 400-500 living in the wild. They are currently spending about $44000 -$55000 per ferret with a $1,000,000 per year budget.

This project is headed by the Black-Footed Ferret Working Group, which consists of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas Wildlife Services, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Natural Resource Conservation Service, Texas Agri-Life Extension and researchers from Texas Tech and West Texas A&M Universities.

I personally don't care if they are trying to reintroduce the ferret but do it on private land that doesn't affect the public.

They've introduced 2500...yet only 400-500 now that doesn't sound like a good investment for something ppl were perfectly fine with thinking they were extinct.

KWood_TSU is dancing a jig, as we speak!

I don't TPWD has that kind of money in its budget to blow on them at this time right now unless the government is going to foot the whole bill. But the way the feds waste money anything is possible.

O they are doing it alright talked to the tx and fed biologist myself. I'm sure money is largely funded by the Feds though.

It is the feds blowing YOUR money!

If the state doesnt use it, they cannot get more later. More dumbness, perhaps there is a reason they are not in the area? I bet the Pdogs take them out.


I think I enjoy shooting Pdogs as much as anything else there is.

It sounds like the Feds are spending Federal money on Federal land, I don't think that the state has much of a say in it.

It may make a few folks mad on here, but I don't have a problem with it. Not being able to shoot a few dogs that no one is going to eat anyway seems a small price to pay to put things back the way God designed it.
I understand that things will never be completely back to the natural prairie, that doesn't mean we can't get a few pieces of public land pretty close.

Let the flaming begin.

No flame I agree with you. As for doing it on private land; What landowner in his right mind would voluntarily make themselves subject to The Endangered Species Act regulations?

Speaking of natural...I think we need to re-establish the Pterodactyl population to allow us to get more wing shooting in.

That would be cool! I wonder what they taste like!

To make things worse in my opinion and messing with mother nature they are dusting for fleas around the proposed release sites to prevent the plague. They are also in the process of developing a vaccine for the plague that will be fed to the ferrets and prairie dogs.

The plague is mothers natures way of dealing with over population and they are taking this away and there will be a huge increase of prairie dogs that their habitat won't take.

Yeh! Maybe I could hit one of those!

Tastes like chicken.

Yup.

Just go to South Florida. I swear I saw dozens of them the last time I visited family in West Palm.

Between them and the gators, I live in fear for the indigenous Chihuahua population in that area.

Never shot a prairie dog but I darn near shot both of the smelly ferrets my daughter used to have. I hated those things.

If it is like the ferrets or weasels or whatever they have in Hawaii thet will someday wish they hadn't. Kinda like they are doing with wolves.

money that could have been spent on bullets, & could put on a wounded warror hunt, or disabled kids, my

Sean Kyle sean.kyle@tpwd.state.tx.us is the Texas state biologist in charge of this.



I know he is busy with the Lesser Prairie Chicken deal and may not be aware of the concern from the public and needs to be. I encourage everybody to email him and let him know your thoughts.


sean.kyle@tpwd.state.tx.us

Here is a somewhat interesting video to watch about the reintroduction in South Dakota.
It starts talking about the reintroduction at 22 minutes 30 sec in. So you can just fast forward to that point and watch it.

http://watch.sdpb.org/video/1362694893/

I'm no biologist but what would this help? What benefit would come of it?

They are wanting to do this because they are mandated by the Endangered Species Act to release them somewhere in Texas.

But what benefit would there be? Can ya eat them? Will they take care of an ongoing pest problem? Will they be food for something else in the food chain that's starving?

They eat p-dogs. And Im sure many things eat them.

Full disclosure Jeremy! You guide prairie dog hunts so you have a financial interest. You can yell all you want at the state but once a species in on the endangered list, the Feds call the shots, particularly when your talking Federal land. I am particularly familiar with it in regards to wolves.