Never before photographed

[D. Robert Franz]

A number of years ago I was on assignment for the Wildlife Conservation Society to photograph Black-footed ferret reintroduction in AZ. One late afternoon I was sitting with a USFWS Biologist watching a den in a prairie dog town that we knew a ferret had spent the day in. I was hoping the ferret would come out before dark (they are quite nocturnal). At an ajacent burrow a praire-dog popped up and began barking.. I mentioned to the biologist wouldn't it be great if the ferret would come out and catch the p-dog! He was quick to tell me that as far as they know all predation takes place undergound.. It wasn't a minute later that the ferret come out of the den and attacked the prairie dog. What a battle it was and I captured the entire sequence. Here this was just as the ferret first got hold of the p-dog by the throat. It gets pretty bloody after this. The kill was made just as the sun went down.

When I turned in the images no one could beleive it. After some research by WCS it was determined that I was the only person in the world to have photographed this behavior. Images from that evening have appeared in many publications including Wildlife Conservation Magazine and National Geographic. This was done on film (remember that stuff)

From Memory:

Handheld
Camera: Eos 1n
Lens: EF300mm F2.8L
Film: Provia 100 (probably pushed to ISO 200

[Grace Scalzo]

Remarkable. I hope you post more of the sequence.

[RakeshDhareshwar]

Wow ! Congrats on such a rare achievement !! Excellent action shot !

[Rachel Hollander]

Great story, image and memory. I too hope you will post more in the series.

TFS,
Rachel

[D. Robert Franz]

I should also mention that the black-footed ferret is one of the most endangered animals in the world. For over 30 years they were thought to be extinct until a colony was discovered not far from my house here in NW Wyoming in the mid 80's. They now have a reintroduction program going in areas of adequate habitat and prey base which is almost exclusively prairie dogs....

[Sid Garige]

Unbelievable Dale. I saw a documentary on them a while back. Exceptional job.

[D. Robert Franz]

Unbelievable Dale. I saw a documentary on them a while back. Exceptional job.

Is that the one where I believe Lorretta Swit (MASH) does the naration?

[Morkel Erasmus]

fantastic image and story! thanks for sharing this Dale. amazing light and action, your SS must've been quite low with the fading light and low ISO film?

[Marc Mol]

Great story, well recorded Dale.
You wouldn't want to mess with these guys judging by this image..........a predator indeed!
TFS

[Andrew Merwin]

Incredible image. TFS

[Jamie Strickland]

Dale I remember you telling me this story so seeing the picture just completes it ! to be able to photograph this and have probably the only picture in the world of such an incident is priceless

[Pieter de Waal]

Amazing, TFSr the info and the remarkable image.

[Steve Kaluski]

Front row seat by the looks of things Dale.

Like the action and slight blur of the Ferrets rear leg and tail. Good informative story, like the warmth of the setting light. Well executed using film here Dale, no latitude with that stuff, and no chance of tweaking it after the event.

TFS
Steve

[D. Robert Franz]

.

. Well executed using film here Dale, no latitude with that stuff, and no chance of tweaking it after the event.

TFS
Steve

I can't imagine how nice this would have been with todays equipment. The majority of the images had subject blur due to the incredible speed of the event. I would easily had 2-3 stops more shutter speed. I also lost a lot of potentially great images while changing film.. I banged through 4-5 rolls.