The US Fish and Wildlife Service hopes to use drones to inoculate black-footed ferrets against sylvatic plague . . .
The US government is set to unleash drones that fire vaccine-laced pellets in a bid to save the endangered black-footed ferret, a species that is facing a plague epidemic across America’s great plains.
The US Fish and Wildlife (FWS) has developed a plan to bombard ferret habitat in Montana with the vaccine, which will be administered via specially designed drones that will be able to shoot pellets in three directions simultaneously.
The vaccines will be targeted at the prairie dog population at the UL Bend National Wildlife Refuge in north-eastern Montana. Black footed ferrets – North America’s only native ferret – are completely dependent upon prairie dogs, which are a type of burrowing rodent, for their food and shelter.