American Ferret: Every day he eats his own weight in meat. An eternally hungry predator who is obsessed with prairie dogs (7 photos)

Think about your favorite food. In every detail to make your mouth water. Now imagine that almost your entire diet consists of this dish. How do you like this prospect? Personally, I don’t like it very much, but American ferrets liked it.





In 9 out of 10 cases, these guys eat breakfast, lunch or dinner with prairie dogs - large rodents weighing up to 1.5 kilograms. Fortunately, in Canada and the USA, where American ferrets are registered, the favorite dish of predators is always on the menu.



Ferrets settle in close proximity to dog colonies. Firstly, it’s very convenient when your food is within walking distance. And secondly, the animals do not dig holes themselves; instead, they squeeze out living space from their prey! And so that the owners do not complain about the raider takeover, the ferret simply eats them. Every night, American ferrets go out to hunt and inspect their territory (about 60 hectares!) for burrows that have not yet been cleared.





What did those dogs do to him? They killed his family and dog?! No, it’s not a matter of vendetta at all, but of the ferret’s exorbitant appetites. The predator is approximately the size of its prey. But the animal’s metabolic rate is so crazy that every day it eats a portion of meat weighing itself! In a year, ferrets kill approximately 250 prairie dogs—slightly less than the average colony produces.



And now a minute of mathematics: every day our hero eats dog meat. But there are 365 days in a year. Is he really starving for almost 4 months? No, it’s just that white-tailed prairie dogs, the most common species of this genus, hibernate for just 4-5 months.

At this time, the dog lover is forced to survive on all sorts of little things: voles, wintering insect larvae and small birds. What will happen if the dogs suddenly disappear? American ferrets will also disappear. Even in summer, predators die of hunger where their favorite food is not available. In winter, losses are even higher.



To compensate for losses, the species begins to reproduce at the very beginning of March. The principle is simple: whoever is the first to find a female ready for reproduction dances with her. Having seized on love, animals are in no hurry - ferrets can be friends with organisms for 2-3 hours! Alas, but the male only needs THIS. He will leave his girlfriend immediately after their wedding night.



After 45 days, 2 to 5 puppies will be born. Until mid-summer, young people live in their mother’s care. Afterwards, it settles into the nearest rodent burrows. They will regularly visit mom, ask how she is doing, and eat her dogs. Only in the fall do young individuals decide to leave the matcha house and go in search of their territory.



And everything would have been fine for ferrets if one day people hadn’t thought of making fur coats out of them. They overdid it so much that by the 1980s there was only one population of ferrets left in North America. The US authorities realized it in time, caught all the animals and began to reproduce according to all the rules for restoring the species. Now the population is growing and feels relatively safe. And this is great news for us! But, alas, not for prairie dogs.