Plan To Save Endangered Ferrets: Shoot Treats Out Of Drones

U.S. wildlife officials have a crazy idea for saving an endangered species of ferrets whose main source of food has been slashed because of disease: vaccination via drone.

Under a proposal from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, drones would zip across the UL Bend National Wildlife Refuge in Montana, dropping peanut-butter flavored meds in hopes that prairie dogs the ferrets feast on will become vaccinated.

Otherwise, the 300 or so black-footed ferrets that remain in the world will have nothing to eat.

Ryan Moehring with the Fish and Wildlife Services told Patch that, in 1981, only 18 black-footed ferrets were believed to exist in the entire world.

So the government undertook a massive re-population effort to breed and release ferrets across the plains between Canada and Mexico. Now the outbreak of plague, carried by fleas and other pests have devastated the ferrets' main food supply and whittled the population back down to 300.

Right now, officials ride around on SUVs spraying insecticide near the burrows in hopes of keeping mosquitoes at bay. It's pretty labor- and cost-intensive, but it's the only way the Fish and Wildlife Services fights the disease right now.

Enter drones.

The idea is pretty straightforward. A private contractor would fly drones over the ferrets' burrows at the Montana wildlife refuge. The drones would be equipped with a seed-spreader-like device that would fling plague vaccines out in the hopes that the the prairie dogs will eat them, making them immune to the plague and giving the ferrets ample food again.

The vaccines are M&M-sized snacks made of peanut butter, water, dye and the vaccine. Prairie dogs love peanut butter, Moehring said, and the snacks wouldn't harm the environment or any other critters who may stumble upon one.

Estimates say the drones could cover anywhere between 60 and 200 acres per hour with the treats.

(Despite some media reports that said otherwise, Moehring clarified that the vaccines aren't actual M&Ms.)

And the proposal is just that: a proposal. It survived a public comment period, where nearby residents weighed in — the reaction was "mostly positive," according to Moehring — and now goes before a regional director for approval.

Implementation couldn't begin until September, at the earliest, as the technology is still being developed.

“There’s not an army of drones coming to a prairie near you," Moehring said.

Image: Ryan Hagerty / USFWS