Native species such as swift foxes and black-footed ferrets were eradicated from the Fort Belknap reservation in the United States by poisoning campaigns, disease, and farm ploughs, which converted the open prairie into cropland and cattle pastures, many generations ago.
Now, under the guidance of Native American elders and outside wildlife organisations, students and interns from the tribal college are assisting in the reintroduction of the small predators.
Her work is a component of a programme overseen by the tribal department of fish and game in collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund.
The nocturnal animals live among the mounded burrows of prairie dog colonies, where ferrets stalk and strangle their prey by wrapping themselves around them.
On a recent clear night, as Snake Butte, a Nakoda sacred site, loomed on the horizon, Main shone a flashlight into a long, slender wire trap atop a prairie dog burrow. Inside was the second ferret that she and fellow wildlife worker CJ Werk, daughter of the former tribal president, would capture that night.
"There's one inside!" Principal exclaimed quietly.
"Wow, another one?" exclaimed Werk, who was in a friendly competition with her cousin to catch the most ferrets. I intend to rub it in.
The animal was sedated and vaccinated against the sylvatic plague carried by their favourite prey after being rushed back to the "hospital trailer." It was implanted with a microchip for future tracking before being returned to the prairie dog colony to Main and Werk's soft applause.
As animal and plant extinctions accelerate around the world, Native American tribes with limited resources are attempting to re-establish endangered species and restore their habitats, paralleling growing calls to "rewild" places by revitalising degraded natural systems.
According to Julie Thorstenson, executive director of the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society, the direct relationship that Native Americans perceive between humans and wildlife distinguishes their approach from that of Western conservationists, who emphasise "management" of human-dominated habitat and wildlife.
She stated, "Western science views humans as external managers of the land and the ecosystem." Indigenous individuals view themselves as a part of it.
The Fort Belknap-dwelling Nakoda and Aaniiih have struggled to restore their land to a more natural state. Ferret populations are periodically wiped out by disease, and it is possible that half of the released foxes have died or fled.
To restore the balance between humans and the natural world, tribal members claim to be committed to repopulating native species with profound cultural significance. Tribal elders reminisce wistfully about the vanished Swift Fox Society, which revered the elusive animals and used their furs and tails to decorate hair braids and costumes. The foxes and ferrets are referred to as their "relatives."
It's like having your family back, said former Fort Belknap wildlife programme director Mike Fox. We have a pretty good location in the Northern Plains to reintroduce these animals and nearly complete the circle of indigenous species.
Prior to European settlement, up to one million ferrets inhabited approximately 400,000 square kilometres (156,000 square miles) between Canada and Mexico, wherever prairie dogs were found.
In the 1960s, conversion of grasslands to crops, plague, and poisoning campaigns reduced the prairie dog's range to 5,700 square kilometres (2,200 square miles). Ferrets were thought to be extinct until 1981, when they were rediscovered on a ranch in Meeteetse, Wyoming.
They are one of the most endangered mammals in North America, with fewer than forty individuals living on Fort Belknap. A captive breeding programme is implemented to combat periodic extinctions caused by plague.
Because they consume grass, prairie dogs are still considered a nuisance by ranchers, including those on Fort Belknap. Fox stated that annual prairie dog shooting tournaments were once held to raise funds for the tribal fish and game department. The tournaments are no longer held at Fort Belknap, and prairie dogs, the squirrel-sized rodents that inhabit the plains of the United States, are now recognised as essential to ferrets.
Parts of Fort Belknap are also being repopulated with bison, a species that sustained Native Americans for centuries until they were exterminated by white settlers. Dozens of tribes across the United States are restoring bison populations, similar to efforts in the Pacific Northwest to sustain wild salmon populations, another keystone species that has provided tribes with food.
Different efforts are required to restore black-footed ferrets and swift foxes. Foxes and ferrets, unlike bison and salmon, are not food sources. They reside in the shadows, hunt primarily at night, and are seldom observed.
Ferrets were reintroduced to seven reservations on the Northern Plains and two tribal sites in the southwest, while swift foxes were returned to four reservations, according to Shaun Grassel, a former biologist for the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe in South Dakota.
Less than 91 metres (100 yards) from a small pen containing three swift foxes that were about to be released at Fort Belknap, tribal elders Buster Moore and John Allen sat among cacti and scrubby grasses and passed a pipe around a circle of men as women sat nearby, watching and listening.
Moore, whose Nakoda name is Buffalo Bull Horn, rubbed his hands on the hard ground after the ceremony and explained that they had prayed for the foxes, the tribes, and the land itself.
"It supports its own existence; it aids Mother Earth. Moore stated of the restoration work being honoured that day that "everything maintains equilibrium" Prairie canines, wolves, swift and red foxes, and black-footed ferrets.
Once prevalent in the plains, swift foxes now occupy approximately 40 percent of their original habitat. Since 2020, the tribes, college, and scientists from the Smithsonian's National Zoo have collaborated to relocate approximately 100 foxes from healthy populations in Wyoming and Montana to Fort Belknap.
Tim Vosburgh, the fish and wildlife biologist for the reservation, and two assistants cautiously approached a pen containing a few foxes as Moore spoke. They used wire cutters to sever the chain link and then pulled it apart.
After the biologist and assistants had left the enclosure, a fox poked its head out of a prairie dog burrow. Within minutes, two more swiftly followed it out of the opening.
They vanished across the undulating landscape and into the blinding sun west of the Bearpaw Mountains.
"What they require is some good fortune," said Allen the elder. "They must survive the winter, but they won't have to worry about it because they have the necessary skills. Therefore, we ask our relatives to protect them."
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