Great things take time; that is why seeds persevere through rocks and dirt to bloom.
- Mashona Dhliwayo
In the fall of 2016, I began a graduate program at the University of Florida in pursuit of a master’s degree in interdisciplinary ecology and wildlife conservation to complement a background in photography and visual storytelling. After seven years of finding my way through a labyrinth of undergraduate studies that began at pharmaceutical research, took a detour through computational biology and business marketing before reaching my final stop in photojournalism, I told myself that I would never go back to school.
At first, I wasn’t quite sure where photography would take me or what I wanted to do with it, but as time went on and my portfolio grew, I found the work toward which I mostly gravitated typically took place outdoors — with some landscape or wild creature carefully framed at the far end of my lens. After an expedition (and a bit of soul-searching) just inside the Arctic Circle of Northern Norway, I returned with a fresh set of eyes on what I wanted. And so began the bitter work of going back to school to build a greater foundation of the natural sciences and an outlet through which to channel a newly realized commitment to the field of conservation storytelling.
Remember that very first quote above? Okay, now fast-forward six years and here we are. Earlier this month, I began working at Colorado Parks and Wildlife as a photographer, and on my third day, I was afforded the opportunity to document the release of some of North America’s most endangered mammals — black-footed ferrets.
Before proceeding further, it should be noted that this restoration effort would not be possible without the help and cooperation from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, land owners and citizen advocates, and a number of conservation and business organizations. Working with these partners over the last several months of 2022, Colorado Parks and Wildlife released an additional 61 black-footed ferrets into the wild.
The only ferret species native to North America, the black-footed ferret’s historical range covered much of the Great Plains from Canada to Mexico and is closely correlated with the range of habitat also occupied by prairie dogs — the ferret’s primary food source. However, as prairie dog populations declined over the last century from land conversion and plague, so did the population of the black-footed ferret until it was declared extinct in 1979.
But on Sept. 26, 1981, in Meeteetse, Wyo., cattle rancher John Hogg discovered the carcass of what he thought only to be a strange-looking mink, killed by the family dog, Shep, sometime during the night. Hogg and his wife, Lucille, recalled hearing Shep barking in the predawn hours but figured the dog “got in a tangle with a porcupine" and went back to sleep. It wasn't until later that morning, after Lucille asked her husband to take the dead animal to a taxidermist for mounting, when they were told what they found was, in fact, a rare and endangered species.
There were about 130 ferrets discovered in Meeteetse over the next few years — and just in time too, as plague had spread through the colony and killed all but 18 of the ferrets before USFWS was able to spearhead a captive breeding program in the mid-1980s. Since then, reintroduction has taken place in multiple states across the West. CPW established its own initiative in 2013 to restore black-footed ferret populations on the Eastern Plains and celebrated the state’s 500th ferret release eight years later in November 2021.
These efforts are ongoing, and on Nov. 9, 2022, with help from the USFWS and a few dozen elementary school children, CPW released another 15 black-footed ferrets on an unusually warm and wildly windy afternoon on a private ranch in Lamar, Colo. It’s such a privilege to work alongside dedicated people who have such big hearts for nature and wildlife.
From discovering a vocation to restoring a critically endangered species, all great things take time. It’s also important to remember and honor the time and journey in between these great moments. Performing an action today might not produce a result tomorrow, but little by little has the potential to culminate into something truly spectacular — like discovering a vocation or restoring a critically endangered species. In short, I suppose the message here is to persevere.