Story at a glance
- A Colorado man met a rare furry visitor hunkering down in his garage in early November.
- Reese Nettles told The Pueblo Chieftain he went out to his garage to exercise on Nov. 8 and saw a black-footed ferret, the rarest mammal in North America, under a table.
- There are only 605 black-footed ferrets in the world, and 304 live in captivity.
A Colorado man met a rare furry visitor hunkering down in his garage in early November.
Reese Nettles told The Pueblo Chieftain he went out to his garage to work out on Nov. 8 and saw a black-footed ferret, the rarest mammal in North America, under a table.
“He looked like if you put your hand down he would run right over to you,” Nettles told the outlet.
Nettles then took a picture and sent it to a friend who works for Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) after originally thinking it might be a neighbor’s pet.
“He identified it as a black-footed ferret and told me they are endangered and extremely rare,” Nettles said. “It was so silly we could not believe it ourselves.”
The outlet noted there are only 605 black-footed ferrets in the world, and 304 live in captivity.
The rare mammal was one of nine black-footed ferrets released two-weeks earlier at Walker Ranch as part of an ongoing conservation effort.
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“We don’t know exactly why this black-footed ferret left the colony,” Ed Schmal, a CPW conservation biologist, said in a news release.
“Sometimes they scramble around the colony to find the right home,” Schmal continued. “This one might have gotten pushed out by other ferrets and it went looking for a new home. We really don’t know.”
But Schmal said it is extremely rare for the animal to enter a structure like Nettle’s garage.
“Black-footed ferrets are nocturnal and extremely shy. For some reason, this one left the colony and was seeking shelter,” he said.
More than 120 black-footed ferrets have been released on Walker Ranch since 2013, according to CPW.
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