The black-footed ferret lives on a single diet: prairie dogs. But when the ubiquitous prairie dog was hunted and poisoned into near extinction, black-footed ferrets disappeared from prairie grasslands. For years, they survived in zoos only. The Nature of Things follows a painstaking and precarious project that attempts to re-introduce ferrets to their Saskatchewan home. The tiny population of returnees faces constant threat. The big question: will the ferrets breed and produce a new generation born in the wild? Bonus features explore human impact on the habitat of other prairie dwellers: the bison, burrowing owl and greater short-horned lizard.