Fine Fat Prairie Dogs by Ernest Thompson Seton
This is one in an ongoing series of nature essays from Lives of Game Animals (1925-1928) by Ernest Thompson Seton. The Black-footed Ferret has verged between on the edge of extinction to thought extinct to back on the verge again at the time of this writing. Do we have time to save what is left of our ever-declining numbers of birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and all the others?
The End/Vol II pg. 573-574
“When one finds an animal rare in spite of an ample range and abundant food, it commonly means that, for some unknown reason, that creature is dying out; Nature has set on it the mark of the death-house. The why-of-it is beyond our present knowledge, but some day we shall learn and profit by the truth. The Blackfoot, always rare, is becoming rarer. Now that the Demon of Commerce has declared war on the Prairie-dog, that merry little simpleton of the Plains must go. In a few short years the tiny crater that erupted his annual families will be made no more, the older craters will be abandoned and crumble down to the level of the plain. And with the passing of the Prairie-dog, the Ferret, too, will pass.”