They Were Down to 18. Then Scientists Opened a Freezer.

By 1979, the black-footed ferret was presumed extinct. Then, at about 3 a.m. on September 26, 1981, a ranch dog named Shep killed a strange animal outside the Hogg family’s home near Meeteetse, Wyoming. A local taxidermist recognized it, and scientists soon found something no one expected: a colony of more than 100 black-footed ferrets, the last wild ones on Earth.

Four years later, plague and canine distemper tore through that colony. On February 28, 1987, biologists caught the last wild ferret, a male called Scarface, and the species was extinct in the wild. Eighteen ferrets were left, all in captivity, and only seven of them would ever pass on their genes.

Then scientists turned to a freezer. A female named Willa died in 1988, but her cells were saved at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s Frozen Zoo. In December 2020, a clone of Willa named Elizabeth Ann became the first clone of a U.S. endangered species. In 2024, another Willa clone, Antonia, became a mother, and Willa became the species’ eighth founder.

In this film

• The night a ranch dog proved an “extinct” animal was still alive
• How the last wild colony collapsed, and the six ferrets who were caught to be saved and died anyway
• Scarface, the last wild black-footed ferret
• Eighteen survivors, seven founders, and the genetic problem hidden inside the comeback
• Willa, the Frozen Zoo, and the first kits ever born to a cloned endangered animal
• Ferrets back at Meeteetse, and 18 new ferrets released in northern Arizona on September 14, 2026

There are still only a few hundred black-footed ferrets in the wild, and plague is still their biggest threat. But 45 years after Shep’s discovery, they are still here.

Help the ferrets

Watch the ferret cams and learn more from the Black-footed Ferret Recovery Implementation Team, or volunteer for spotlighting and counts with Arizona Game and Fish.

Video and photos: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain and CC BY 2.0), including photos by Ryan Moehring, Mike Lockhart, Marla Trollan, Kimberly Fraser, Ryan Hagerty and Seth Jones. Clone-lineage kit photos: Roshan Patel / Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. Archive photos are from 2005–2021 and illustrate the story; their year appears on screen. Narration: AI voice. Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), CC BY 4.0.