Ferret Them Out
by Alex Hawes
Zoogoers hoping to sneak a peek at a black-footed ferret will find one living in the Zoo’s Small Mammal House along Olmsted Walk. With FONZ support, the Zoo plans to add monitors at this exhibit with live video links of the black-tailed prairie dogs yipping away at the Zoo’s American Prairie and the ferret kits being raised at CRC, as well as a video documenting National Zoo research on breeding, reproductive physiology, and reintroduction of black-footed ferrets. Expanded displays will further illuminate the ferret conservation story, Smithsonian research, and the contributions of the Black-Footed Ferret Recovery Program participants, including the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, state agencies, zoos, and Native American groups.
Children in CRC’s region also have a unique opportunity to encounter a ferret face to face. CRC educators take a female ferret, Azusa, on the road to schools, primarily in the eight counties neighboring Front Royal, as well as to camps, summer school groups, and even juvenile detention centers. The first of its kind, the three-year-old Black-Footed Ferret Ambassador Program developed by CRC education program manager Jennifer Buff aims to teach kids the basics of small population biology and genetics, and specifically the challenge the ferret faces in recovering from near-extinction.
CRC became the first institution licensed to transport live black-footed ferrets for educational purposes. Six-year-old Azusa well past her reproductive years travels in a special "Ferret-mobile," a van adorned with a painted image of the masked creature. During presentations, kids can view, but not handle, the ferret inside her specially designed terrarium, then learn why this charming creature is so rare.
The black-footed ferret saga often surprises students. "Most of the animals they see when visiting zoos come from somewhere more exotic, yet this is one of the most critically endangered species from right here in the U.S.," says Jennifer Shirk, education specialist at CRC. Jennifer Buff and Shirk take students through an hour-long program that includes an exercise investigating the effects of population crashes on genetic diversity. Kids receive colored beads which have passed through the long narrow bottleneck of a laboratory beaker. Students can then visualize which beads or genetic traits a species like the black-footed ferret can lose after a population bottleneck event. Buff is now developing a similar program to teach teachers and schoolchildren in South Africa about declining cheetah populations one more example of CRC’s global reach.
-Alex Hawes
ZooGoer 29(5) 2000. Copyright 2000 Friends of the National Zoo. All rights reserved.
