A rabbit species thought to be extinct for 120 years was recently re-discovered in Mexico, creating a stir that mirrors the excitement over finding black-footed ferrets near Meeteetse, Wyoming, long after they were assumed extinct.
Rediscovering animals long thought lost is rare, said retired wildlife biologist Franz Camenzind.
He was onsite weeks after the ferrets were rediscovered in 1981. And he was also involved in efforts to bring back the near-vanished California condors.
“It does happen, and it is exciting,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
“Every few years you’ll hear about something like that, and it usually in a remote location,” he said.
Amid the excitement over finding the long-lost rabbits, biologists in Mexico will have their work cut out for them, Camenzind said.
Much like what happened in the aftermath of discovering the Meeteetse ferrets, scientists will be scrambling to determine what to do next, he said.
“They have to figure out how many there are, how big is the rabbit population? What are the threats to them and where to go from here?” he said.
Five-Year Rabbit Quest
Omiltemi cottontail rabbits, a native species of Mexico, were thought to have vanished.
Even so, ecologists set off on a mission to track them down amid persistent rumors that locals were still seeing and even hunting the rabbits in the Sierra Madre del Sur region.
That’s not unusual when it comes to animals so elusive, they’re assumed to be lost, Camenzind said.
“It’s sometimes a situation where the locals may know about it, but there’s no official documentation of the species,” he said.
He recalls being among those who were seeking any evidence of black-footed ferrets in the years before they were found alive in the wild.
“They were thought to be extinct, period,” he said. “The agency people sort of laughed at us and said, ‘good luck with that.’”
But like wildlife researchers in Wyoming had decades before, the biologists in Mexico refused to give up. And after five years, their efforts paid off, with verified video of one of the rabbits in a conifer forest.
The re-discovery of the black-footed ferrets was less dignified, Camenzind recalled.
“All of the sudden, a ranch dog came back home with one, a dead one,” he said.
Black-footed ferrets were thought to be extinct before they were rediscovered in Wyoming in 1981. (Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post via Getty Images) 
The California condor became extinct in the wild in 1987. A captive breeding program has since seen the bird released back into the wild. (Getty Images)
Ferrets Thought To Be Extinct Twice
Native to Wyoming and the surrounding region, black-footed ferrets were first thought to be extinct by the late 1950s.
In 1964, a small, declining population of black-footed ferrets was found in South Dakota. Nine of them were captured in hopes that they could be bred in captivity.
But those efforts failed. The wild population in South Dakota vanished in 1974 and the last ferret in captivity died in 1979.
Then two years later, a Meeteetse-area dog named Shep showed up with a dead black-footed ferret in his mouth.
It was soon determined that about 24 ferrets were left in the wild, Camenzind said. Capture and captive breeding of some of the ferrets was tried again, and that time, it worked.
“It’s a very proud moment in Wyoming history,” he said.
Around that same time, Camenzind filmed the capture of nearly-vanished California condors for a captive breeding program. That program was a success too.
Sometimes Risks Pay Off
Any time an extremely rare or assumed-extinct species is re-discovered, trying to reestablish the population or restoring the population is a calculated risk, Camenzind said.
Back in the early 80s the odds were long that both ferrets and condors could be restored through captive breeding.
“Neither of those species had been successfully bred in captivity before,” he said.
The scientists in Mexico face a tough choice, he said.
That being, whether to try what worked for the Wyoming ferrets, or “leaving them alone and letting them fight for survival,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
