in dry ice and now on exhibit in the National Museum at Washington, D.C. This was an adult male estimated (I believe if I am remembering right) 4 years old, was about 22–24 inches long, carrying several wood ticks plus some gopher ticks. I received a very complimentary letter regarding this from the institution as they had never been able to get a single specimen and at the time it consisted of 4 full floors of exhibit.
In the summer of 1950 the service entered into an agreement with the Rosebud Sioux tribal enterprise for control of extensive prairie dog towns on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. This was a project that involved the use of 1080 poisoned oats (Sodium Fluoracetate). This program involved the use of a crew of native Indians who assisted me in treating large holdings of prairie dogs on range lands at the request of landowner, lessee or tenant with possession of the land (with signed agreement-waiver release). I made my headquarters in Rosebud, had a crew of from 5 to 6 men, and during that summer treated well over 34,000 acres. It was during this summer that I saw two ferrets living in two separate prairie dog towns. At this time I started getting interested in them myself. One was living at a place between Norris and Belvidere, South Dakota, on the Baxter Berry Ranch, of the late ex-governor Tom Berry. There was a terrific acreage in this dog town (several sections). In fact, the village of Norris was completely surrounded on all sides by prairie dog town. Grass was almost non-existent and even the grass roots in the sod were eaten by these rodents. Land owners paid for the grain at cost and wages of the crew on a revolving basis.
The next ferret was this same summer in a prairie dog town on a fork of the White River northeast of Blackpipe day school on Indian land operated by Indian ranchers. I believe their name was Blue Dog (I have since lost notes on this).
It was during this summer that I replaced Walt Stammerjohn, MCA from western Nebraska loaned to South Dakota for assistance as our group of hunters numbered only 4 and the agreement stipulated a full season of rodent control on the reservation.
On ferret #4, the last mentioned, the prairie dog town was also treated with 1080. Since there was an early day fort located in the area on the banks of the White River tributary, I visited this area on weekends and every chance while nearby would drive over to the particular area when I first noticed #4. In nearly every instance there he would be, nearly like waiting for me. I would just stop in the area, wait a while and he would emerge from a prairie dog hole. Sometimes just part way out, other times entirely out. I especially want to mention that this town was a 100% kill of prairie dogs.
The following summer [1951] an extensive program was carried out on the Pine Ridge Reservation. . . . I used 3 crews of Indian labor putting out something just over 12 tons of 1080 on 43,137 acres. It was this summer also that 2 different ferrets were seen and both of these “survived” the treatment. One near the village of Kyle and the other in the vicinity of Oglala. John Limehan was owner and operator; also he operated a small country store. At that time there was an Indian agent or farm agent, Willis Adams, who assisted me a lot, arranging for lunches, helping to hunt up owners (mostly Indian operators) for releases, inquiring of finances and the like. He was one that I took along who got a look at the last mentioned ferret (#6). The Superintendent (Sanderson) at that time of Pine Ridge Agency once went along to supposedly also look at it, but, of course, wandered off in a nearby untreated section with his .22 rifle obviously unmoved to anything but the excitement of shooting off a few prairie dogs.
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The first attempt to restore black-footed ferrets was linked to Walt Disney of all people, in his company’s production of the film The Vanishing Prairie. In 1953, federal predator and rodent control agent George Barnes was enlisted to live trap three black-footed ferrets from Fall River and Jackson Counties, South Dakota, and release the ferrets into Wind Cave National Park for the film crew. Of the three he brought to Wind Cave, only one survived until January 1954, but the precedent was set. The survival of at least one suggested restoration was possible, and the park requested six more ferret pairs. To increase the supply of ferrets for relocation, the State of South Dakota mailed a specially designed round aluminum trap to each rodent control specialist working in the western part of the state. With Disney-like visions of heroes and villains, my young mind could not yet wrap itself around the thought of enlisting the prairie dog exterminators to save the declining predator. I couldn’t understand how biologists who were hired to kill, wholesale and without remorse, the singular prey species on which ferrets depend, were at the same time trying to save the predator.
Over the following years, Ralph saw ferrets on multiple prairie dog towns across South Dakota, including one to the north in Haakon County near the Cheyenne River:
Not over a mile or mile and a half from the Bridges Day school on land owned by Chicago Cattle Co. (now known as Western Cattle Co.)—owner Wm. Norton. This one the crew also saw; in fact, it sat or stood immobile all the while we ate lunch nearby—almost like a statue. By the way, they can be caught easily. At that time the area was being extensively tested for oil leases. They used long electric detonator wires of plastic coating wound loosely. They made ideal snares.
In the summer of 1956 I worked a joint program on Standing Rock Reservation, Sioux County, North Dakota, Carson County, South Dakota. While working I stayed at Fort Yates, North Dakota. It was then that one more ferret was observed in a prairie dog town in just about the exact site of old Fort Manuel Lisa, just above the mouth of Hunkpapa Creek, Careen County, South Dakota. This fort was built in 1812 as a depot from which to hold the loyal Missouri River Indians loyal to the American cause. It was in reality a military post built under the guise of a fur post and destroyed in 1813 by allied Indian tribes. Also Fort Manuel is the purported grave of Sacagawea (Bird Woman) guide for Lewis and Clark in 1804. There is a lot of controversy regarding whether or not Sacagawea was buried there; some historians claim she is buried in Oregon. This ferret was located on a prairie dog town which could be about 10 miles below the North Dakota line and by the way this prairie dog town also yielded many relics from an ancient Arikan village which sat on the identical site. I should state prairie dogs seem to like an area that has had a farmstead for habitat. They like ridges where old fence lines were located.
The last one I saw was in 1958 in a dog town at a point just about almost straight south of the city dump of Mobridge, South Dakota or 2–2½ miles east of the Sitting Bull monument west of Mobridge on land at that time owned by Ted Sogge, who has since moved due to inundation by Oahe reservoir.
Ralph tallied a total of thirteen individual ferrets from 1949 to 1964, a period when he also “treated” 145,000 acres of prairie dogs with Compound 1080 and strychnine across South Dakota, North Dakota, and adjoining lands in Nebraska. After reading pieces of Ralph’s life for the previous few weeks, I was crushed when I read in Ralph’s last letter that he believed that “these little animals do not succumb to eating treated prairie dogs” but rather survive and just shift their diet to other things. I thought he knew his work over the past fifteen years was killing off the species he was growing to love. He had observed too much, come to know them so well, yet denied his actions had consequences like a guilty war veteran trying to justify the actions of his youth: “Walt Stammerjohn worked Rosebud and saw quite a few. Also, he worked in Carson County when I did and saw quite a few. Harvey Gibson, mentioned [he saw] six. I think he lived in He Dog village when he worked at Rosebud. I forgot to ask William Pullin how many he has seen. I’m sure Geo Baines at Custer could add on. For now they are still with us and I don’t feel they are in the whooping crane, key deer or dodo bird class.”
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In 1964, biologists under Stuart Udall, then Secretary of the Interior, began putting together a list of rare and endangered animals, a precursor to the Endangered Species Act. That same year, Secretary Udall appointed an advisory board to investigate the federal government’s role in killing wildlife, including prairie dogs, wolves, bobcats, grizzly bears, and a host of other species. Called the Leopold Board after chairman Dr. A. Starker Leopold (oldest son of the famous wildlife biologist Aldo Leopold), the group put forward what became known as the “Leopold Report”
