Russell Springs ? Endangered black-footed ferrets are back in Kansas after being a no-show for at least 50 years.

Last week, 24 of the rare ferrets were released on private ranch land in Logan County. They used to be a common sight in Kansas and across the Great Plains, but that was before a lot of the prairie turned to cropland and prairie dog villages were poisoned.

The ferrets call the prairie dog villages home and prey on the prairie dogs.

“They are beautiful animals and have incredible markings – black masks, black feet and a little saddle across their back,” said Brenda Pace, whose parents own land where the ferrets were released. “They weren’t terribly enthusiastic about getting out of their cages. They barked at our encouragement.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been working on the ferrets’ comeback, hoping to establish 10 self-sustaining populations across the nation by 2010 with 1,500 breeding adult ferrets. Logan County is the 11th site nationwide to reintroduce the ferrets.

“We want them, just like we want the whooping cranes, the peregrine falcons and the bald eagles,” said Ron Klataske, executive director of Audubon of Kansas, an organization that has worked with federal wildlife officials since 2005 to reintroduce the ferrets to the state.

He said officials will not know until next year whether the ferrets will survive the winter and summer in Kansas. They were raised in captivity.

“They will be vulnerable as they try and adapt to the wild,” Klataske said. “They are vulnerable to coyotes, great-horned owls and other predators willing to take them down if they make a mistake. Their population will be supplemented as more ferrets become available.”

The ferrets were released among 6,000 acres of prairie dog colonies spread throughout 10,000 acres of prairie land. Larry and Bettie Haverfield, Gordon Barnhardt, Maxine Blank and the Nature Conservancy own the land.

The ferrets came from breeding facilities in Colorado and Virginia, and zoos in Toronto and Louisville.

The federal ferret reintroduction plan was threatened in September when exterminators under contract with Logan County started using aluminum phosphide gas to poison nearly 100 acres of prairie dog burrows on the land. A 1904 state statute allows county governments to poison land where prairie dogs live and have the landowner pay.

Landowners who support the ferret reintroduction won a restraining order that stopped any more land from being poisoned.

The county, meanwhile, has been trying to stop Haverfield from moving cattle onto land where prairie dogs are located so it can continue poisoning.

Commission Chairman Doug Mackley said he didn’t know what the county will do next.

“It’s pretty tough to fight the federal government,” Mackley said. “We’ll talk about it.”

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, more than 16,000 people wrote federal wildlife officials saying they supported the ferrets being released in Logan County.

The ferrets in Kansas will be monitored for five years. Then officials will evaluate whether to keep the experiment going.

Klataske said the ferrets would be a natural way to control prairie dogs if their reintroduction proves successful.

“There is no reason for ranchers to dislike the ferrets for any reason,” he said. “They do no harm at all.”

Pace said the ferrets’ return could also signal a prairie comeback.

“It is the first step for us in learning to take care of the prairie better than we have in the past,” she said. “I think this will be an economic benefit for Logan County. It will open the door for ecotourism and agrotourism. It’s a wonderful thing.”