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Black-Footed Ferret

Black-Footed Ferret line art illustration (click image to enlarge)

Black-Footed Ferret full color illustration (click image to enlarge)

Artist's notes:

The Black-Footed Ferret was completed on 2.1.2012. I had considered drawing one of these wonderful animals for many years. For some reason, I had trouble getting around to doing it. But now that's it's done, I'm pretty happy with the results. One problem was I had trouble getting good reference photos because of the fact the ferret is an endangered animal. But after tracking down some good images on the Flickr Photostream of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Mountain-Prairie Region.

Information about the Black-Footed Ferret:

The Black-Footed Ferret - also called the American Polecat or Prairie Dog Hunter - is a species of Mustelid native to the prairies of central North America. This ferret is notable as is it highly endangered and has come close to extinction, even once being declared extinct in 1979, and were not found again in the wild until 1987. But thanks to intense conservation and captive breeding programs this mammal had rebounded to about 1,000 mature animals born in the wild. The Black-Footed Ferret feed almost exclusively on prairie dogs, which make up over 90% of the animal's diet. A steep decline in the prairie dog's population is a large part of what resulted in the decline of this Mustelid.