October 15, 2011
Black-Footed Ferret in Buffalo Gap National Grassland, Conata Basin, South Dakota

I went out last night to look for black-footed ferrets in Buffalo Gap National Grassland in the Conata Basin of South Dakota. It took about two and a half hours for me to find a ferret, but it was a most-cooperative subject. I ended up spending about an hour and twenty minutes with it, and I was the one that ended the session — the ferret probably would have let me continue photographing it if I had wanted to. I had gotten some nice images, including the one above, but unfortunately it had a marker on its neck to indicate that the wildlife biologist had worked with the animal recently. The marker is from hair dye, and makes it easy for the people capturing the ferrets to determine that the ferret had already been transported to the small mobile lab for vaccinations, a blood sample, and a Frontline treatment, all to help prevent plague, before being returned to the spot where it was captured.