<p>
	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Dean Biggins.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 150px; float: right;" />I first heard this story on black-footed ferret recovery efforts on NPR on Sunday morning before church. Upon reflection, it was a fitting time to come across this story -- one I&#39;d only heard told in broad strokes -- before worship. What first caught my attention was the fact that <a href="/alumni/au_sable_professional_network/">Au Sable Professor Network (ASPN)</a> mentor Dean Biggins (pictured on right) had worked on black-footed ferret recovery for a large part of his career with USGS in Colorado and wondered if he&#39;d be featured. The story didn&#39;t disappoint, in a couple of ways. First, Dean&#39;s expertise meant he was a featured part of the story. Second, the story itself is a vivid tale of the intricacies of endangered species recovery, but it&#39;s also a powerful story of human sinfulness and collective efforts to make amends and set things right again.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
	After listening to the story, I wanted to learn more. &nbsp;I contacted Dean, and what resulted was an interview that goes beyond the story to look at the many dimensions of black-footed ferret recovery and also how his Christian faith has informed and sustained his work. &nbsp;Listen to the story first by following the link below. &nbsp;Then, read on for my interview with Dean Biggins, one of Au Sable&#39;s <a href="/alumni/au_sable_professional_network/">ASPN mentors</a>, about his life-long work on saving this part of God&#39;s creation. &nbsp;</p>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
	<a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/12/01/228523650/saving-the-native-prairie-one-black-footed-ferret-at-a-time" target="_blank">Click Here to Listen to the Story</a></h3>
<p>
	&nbsp;</p>
<h2>
	Interview</h2>
<p>
	<strong>The story mentions poisoning, dulled survival skills following captive breeding resulting in predation, and now plague as threats to black-footed ferrets. &nbsp;Not to sound sarcastic, but are there any other challenges these creatures are up against?</strong></p>
<p>
	I think any note of sarcasm will tend to go unnoticed to those of us who have experienced the cycles of elation and depression that this program tends to generate. &nbsp;We have done fairly well at solving the predation problems for released ferrets. &nbsp;However, the huge amount of ferret habitat lost to cropland conversion on the Great Plains cannot be recovered (until the Ogallala Aquifer gets pumped dry). &nbsp;Even so, with some effort, we likely can find enough ferret habitat on rangelands. &nbsp; It will take much more effort to keep those habitats plague-free. &nbsp;This disease that was the scourge of our European ancestors was introduced to North America and has become the new &ldquo;Black Death&rdquo; for prairie dogs and ferrets (and other wildlife in the western half of our country). &nbsp;I believe it is the largest single impediment to ferret recovery.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
	<strong>Towards the end of the story, one of the commentators insinuates that black-footed ferrets will always require &quot;human ingenuity&quot; to survive. &nbsp;In your estimation, what on-going support will black-footed ferrets need to make a comeback? And do you think that can be more than just a comeback, but an ability to thrive on the prairie?</strong></p>
<p>
	This question motivates a continuation of the comment above, but perhaps with a philosophical twist. &nbsp;If it occurs, ferret extinction will not be a natural event. &nbsp;We humans created the difficulties for this animal and I strongly believe we should do no less than our best to correct those problems. &nbsp;Holmes Rolston (2006) put it in evolutionary terms, calling human-caused extinction &ldquo;a kind of superkilling&rdquo; that will &ldquo;shut down a story of many millennia, and leave no future possibilities.&rdquo; &nbsp;Regarding ferrets, it now seems likely that doing our best will not be enough to allow this species to &ldquo;thrive&rdquo; if that term implies reaching a self-sustaining state without intervention. &nbsp; It is unlikely that plague will be eradicated; rather, it will need to be managed. &nbsp;Once we fully understand what is biologically feasible, the decision will be made by society whether or not the solutions are &ldquo;reasonable&rdquo; or &ldquo;practical&rdquo; (i.e., affordable). &nbsp;At that point the discussion will become philosophical (or theological) more than scientific.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
	<strong>Does the US government have an internal goal for black-footed ferret restoration? &nbsp;</strong></p>
<p>
	The objectives, as stated in the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service&rsquo;s new recovery plan that is under review, are rather generic, but the criteria for meeting those objectives are specific. &nbsp;For down-listing from endangered to threatened, the central criteria are: &nbsp;1) maintain a population of 280 adults in captivity, 2) establish free-ranging populations of 1,500 breeding adults in 10 or more populations in 6 of the 12 states that originally had ferrets. &nbsp;3) Maintain those populations for at least 3 years, and 4) maintain 100,000 hectares of prairie dog occupied habitat at ferret reintroduction sites. &nbsp;For complete removal from the endangered species list, the captive population is the same but the numbers of free-ranging ferrets and area of habitat are doubled. &nbsp;By 2005, there were probably about 300 wild adult ferrets maintaining themselves at reintroduction sites, and none anywhere else. &nbsp;We are having trouble getting beyond that point, mostly because of plague.</p>
<p>
	<strong>Does the captive breeding program continue, and besides captive breeding, vaccination, and spraying against fleas, have any other interventions been helpful?</strong></p>
<p>
	As one of the criteria for both downlisting and delisting, the captive breeding program is slated to continue for the foreseeable future. &nbsp;It is an insurance policy against synchronous catastrophic failures in wild ferret populations. &nbsp;If reintroduced ferret populations become sufficiently large and stable in the future, I can envision a time when captive breeding might not be needed, but that decision will probably be made in some new recovery plan in the decades ahead. &nbsp;Plague is such a large problem that other interventions (such as coyote management) have been abandoned. &nbsp;Much of our effort now is being put into development of tools to manage plague. Killing the fleas that are the plague vectors does stop the spread of plague, but dusting hundreds of thousands of burrows is laborious. &nbsp;We hope this method can be replaced by bait-deliverable vaccines. &nbsp;The current vaccine for ferrets was actually developed by the Army for protecting troops (plague is a potential biological weapon). &nbsp;It works well on ferrets but is not bait deliverable. &nbsp;A new bait deliverable vaccine for prairie dogs is being field tested. &nbsp;We have work to do&hellip; &nbsp;</p>
<p>
	<strong>Are there any research projects that have spun off of your black-footed ferret research?</strong></p>
<p>
	Actually, I started my biological career studying elk. &nbsp;Then I made a transition to deer and afterward to black-footed ferrets. &nbsp;I spent almost a decade working on ways to try to keep captive-raised ferret from being eaten by coyotes immediately after release. &nbsp;The plague problem became the top priority in 2000 and I needed to work on fleas and bacteria. &nbsp;My subjects have been getting smaller throughout my career&mdash;after the plague bacteria, I think I should retire. &nbsp;I might be getting off topic here, but the point is that there have been a series of changes, with the spin-offs over the last 30 years motivated mostly by a single theme&mdash;recovery of the black-footed ferret. &nbsp;Some of the side projects have involved studies of the prairie dogs on which ferrets depend, and others have involved studies of Siberian polecats (investigated in China and as imported captives here) to learn more about this close relative of the black-footed ferret. &nbsp;Also, the ferrets have taught us about plague, and I&rsquo;m now worried that the combined direct and indirect effects of the disease are causing ecological disruptions that extend to many ecosystems other than western grasslands. &nbsp;This might be my final spin-off and the one that takes us farthest from ferrets, but again, there is work to do&hellip; &nbsp;</p>
<p>
	[You can listen to another NPR story featuring Dean and his work on the spread of plague across the Great Plains here:]</p>
<p>
	<embed allowfullscreen="true" base="http://www.npr.org" height="386" src="http://www.npr.org/v2/?i=240297860&amp;m=240291623&amp;t=audio" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400" wmode="opaque"></embed></p>
<p>
	<strong>What aspects of the Christian life and calling have been instrumental, or motivating, in your work on this endangered species?</strong></p>
<p>
	This question brings back memories, and a candid response will take more than a few sentences. &nbsp;To be honest, my first impressions were troubling. &nbsp;When I was about 10 years old (in the 1950s), I returned to California with my parents after living in a small town in Alaska with wilderness at our door step. &nbsp;It was a shock to move to the San Francisco Bay area where there seemed to be far too many people and a radically transformed environment. &nbsp; Preachers gave sermons referring to the beauty of the Earth but I saw Christians establishing their &ldquo;dominion&rdquo; over the earth in the harshest sense of the term. &nbsp;Writings in the Bible that seemed to promote environmental stewardship did not receive any attention in churches my family attended, and when I asked about the few that I stumbled into (in Genesis, Isaiah and Revelation, as I recall), the response from my parents and other knowledgeable Christians was to discount them with expressions like &ldquo;some parts of the Bible are very hard to understand.&rdquo; &nbsp;I felt alone as a Christian with a strong feeling that we should do a better job of sharing the planet with other life. &nbsp;(Had I looked more closely, I would have found that I was not alone.) &nbsp;Eugene Peterson (in a 2011 interview) could have been describing my experiences when he said &ldquo;I grew up in a very sectarian world. There was no explicit care for creation. My parents were indifferent to it, and my church was indifferent. Hunting was the closest my family or my church ever came to being involved in the world around us. But after they killed their deer or their elk, they were done.&rdquo; &nbsp;</p>
<p>
	Nevertheless, I developed a passion for other life on this planet, and in my late high school and college years, I found shared views, good science, and strong environmental advocacy elsewhere. &nbsp;As I pursued a career in conservation, I continued to think that there should be a tighter connection between care of the environment and Christian theology. &nbsp;Much later, my Mom, having become acutely aware of my feelings, gave me the book &ldquo;Redeeming Creation&rdquo; that articulated those connections. &nbsp;This book, and others that came after it, helped motivate me to become involved in Christian environmental stewardship at levels beyond those of my career path. &nbsp;Having worked with students for much of my career, the goals of Au Sable Institute were especially appealing. &nbsp;I am particularly grateful for the inspiration from Fred VanDyke and Dave Mahan as authors of &ldquo;Redeeming Creation&rdquo; and for continued conversation with them as they help guide Au Sable.</p>
<p>
	My conviction that this is God&rsquo;s planet gives me added purpose to caring for its non-human life. &nbsp;As Peter Harris (2011) phrased it, &nbsp;&ldquo;If&hellip;you do what you do because you believe it pleases the living God, who is the Creator and whose handiwork this is, your perspective is very different.&rdquo;</p>
