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| ©Jessie Cohen, Smithsonian's National Zoo |
| A two-month-old black-footed ferret (right) is pictured with its mother at the National Zoo's Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal. Va. on Aug. 18, 2008. The mother gave birth to the kit on June 21 after National Zoo reproductive scientists inseminated her with previously frozen semen from a male that died in 1998. Successful inseminations with frozen semen are extremely rare -- until now only three black-footed ferret kits have been born from this method. |
The sperm samples were collected and frozen in 1997 and 1998. Successful inseminations with frozen semen are extremely rare - until now only three black-footed ferret kits have been born from this method.
The black-footed ferret is one of the most endangered animals in the world. Once inhabiting the grasslands of the western Great Plains, the black-footed ferret population declined with the loss of the North American prairie ecosystem. Prairie dogs are the ferret's primary prey, and only 2 percent of the original prairie dog habitat remains today. A recent outbreak of sylvatic plague (also known as bubonic plague) in a prairie dog population in South Dakota also threatens to decimate ferret populations there.
