Dear editor:

An open letter to Wyoming Rising, Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, Wyoming Outdoor Council, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Sage Steppe Wild, Sierra Club, Alliance For the Wild Rockies, Northern Plains Resource Council, Wilderness Society, National Wildlife Federation, World Wildlife Fund and billionaire eco barons at large.  

To stave off yet another extinction of the black-footed ferret, conservationists are in dire need of immediate funding and labor. In the March 13 edition of the Powell Tribune, Mark Davis and Mike Koshmrl, masterfully weave facts and opinion in a story masquerading as a news article. Consider this call to action a grant request.

Left unabated, fleas spread plague throughout prairie dog colonies wiping out the rodents, thus by extension, the ferret.  

In an effort to stave off federal bankruptcy (USA extinction), the Department of Government Efficiency has eliminated “husbandry technicians” in the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, some of whom tended to the ferrets.   

Indeed, menial task “grunts” are immediately needed in the captive breeding program and in the field conducting flea abatement, which requires spraying “industrial dust” in and around prairie dog colonies. The article fails to identify the chemical make-up of “industrial dust."  

To the aforementioned conservation groups, please review your past and present lawsuits in which the chemical compounds of “industrial dust” may be revealed. Please keep us abreast of your findings. That would be tremendous.

Speaking of lawsuits, these terminated tremendous techs will likely do the work if the pay is right, so ya’ll will have to set aside your expensive lawsuits to pitch-in federally equivalent wages to the unfortunate techs.

Labor: Federal pay scale with all the goodies — health, dental, eyes, flex time, paid sick days, paid holidays, paid vacation, double-triple overtime for working Ground Hog Day and a pension. There might be room to negotiate pay to a lowly, undesirable state wage rate. Invoke your convincing salesmanship.

Materials: “husbandry technicians” will need housing, vehicles, charge cards, “industrial dust” and ancillary storage and distribution equipment for said dust, personal protection equipment (hopefully}, office space and ancillary management tools.

Dig in for the long haul as expensive ferret saving may drag on for decades more. For instance the not endangered grizzly bear, which became endangered, then threatened, now re-endangered has been researched since 1959. That’s 66 years and still going!

Ya’ll might have to reduce your exorbitant operational costs and generous personal remunerations to free-up funding. Relocating out of Bozeman to Reed Point, Montana, or Lander to Shoshoni, or Powell to Frannie will likely generate more ferret funding.

Tally Ho! Rise to the occasion. Yours and only your immediate generous contributions will save the ferret.

Steve Torrey

Cody