In 1986, just 18 black-footed ferrets remained on the planet, six of which were kept at the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s Sybille wildlife research facility. I hadn’t expected black-footed ferrets to be so small or so beautiful. Black-footed ferrets prey almost exclusively on prairie dogs and depend on their burrows for shelter — no prairie dogs, no black-footed ferrets. Today there are an estimated 500 black-footed ferrets in the wild, while about 280 others are being held in captive breeding facilities. Brust and Carter were part of a multi-agency partnership desperately trying to prevent impending red-cockaded woodpecker extinction.