Ted Turner group wants to reintroduce tiny fox in state

PIERRE, S.D. - Billionaire media mogul Ted Turner wants the state&#39;s permission to release rare swift foxes on his 138,000-acre South Dakota ranch. <br> <br> The Turner Endangered Species Fund of Bozeman, Mont., has asked the state&#39;s Animal Industry Board to allow for the release of the threatened animal the smallest of North America&#39;s wild dogs on Turner&#39;s ranch in central South Dakota. <br> <br> ``It makes sense to try to advance recovery of this important and imperiled component of South Dakota&#39;s natural history,&#39;&#39; said Mike Phillips, director of the Turner fund, a private, nonprofit charity founded in 1997 to help threatened and endangered species. <br> <br> The Turner group wants to release 180 swift foxes over the next seven years. The animals, about the size of house cats, would be trapped in Wyoming and moved to South Dakota. <br> <br> If the Animal Industry Board approves the Turner group&#39;s request, the first foxes could be released late this winter or early spring, Phillips said. <br> <br> Turner, the 63-year-old CNN founder, is the largest private landowner in the United States with about 1.75 million acres in New Mexico, Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. His ranch empire, based in Montana, raises bison.

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