Rachel Santymire, Ph.D. has been involved with the biomedical survey of black-footed ferrets since 2002. She is currently in the field collecting health data and samples from the endangered small carnivores. Since 1991, efforts have been made to return ferrets to the wild by reintroducing them into six states (Wyoming, South Dakot a, Montana, Arizona, Utah and Colorado) and Mexico.

Today, the wild population has grown to about 500 individuals, but many issues have limited its success. The biomedical survey has been assessing the health, disease, morphometrics, reproduction and genetics of the wild population to provide information about factors affecting the survivability of this unique species.

March 13, 2006
Without any delays, I made it into Salt Lake City on time, but my colleagues were not so lucky. Dr. Samantha Wisely had tornado delays in Kansas City and Dr. Hisako Mutlow had snow delays in Denver. Eventually, we all met up for dinner and reminisced about our past ferret trips together. After a good night's sleep, we headed three hours east to Utah. Hopefully, the weather will hold out for us, because any sight of snow or rain in the Coyote Basin could shut us down for the night. We collected five 70-pound trunks of equipment and ran to the store for junk food to keep us awake.  

March 14, 2006
Right now I am working out of a small trailer in Vernal, Utah which is located in the northeast corner of the state, near Dinosaur National Monument. Last night three black-footed ferrets were trapped and three others were spotted. The first trapped individual was a wild-born male who was about 1,300 grams in weight. He was trapped in the Coyote Basin. Two other females that were born in captivity and released in 2004 were trapped on Colorado's reintroduction site, which is about 30 miles from the Utah site.

March 17, 2006
Friday was our last night of spotlighting in Utah. We were going to try to get some sleep between working with the ferrets because tomorrow we have to drive to Salt Lake City to drop off our colleague before heading towards Arizona. The only ferret trapped today, in Colorado, was brought to us at 6:00 a.m. We were very pleased with this trip because 11 ferrets were trapped, which is the most that we had trapped in Utah and Colorado since 2004. When we were finished, we had to pack up the four trunks of equipment and head back into town.  

March 18, 2006
We finished packing and began driving towards Salt Lake City by 9:30 a.m. Once our colleague, Dr. Hisako, checked into the hotel, Dr. Sam Wisely, Travis Livieri (our field biologist) and I drove another four-and-a-half hours towards Arizona. We stopped just in time because it started to snow very heavily. After dinner, we crashed since we hadn't slept since Friday morning!