Posted on 02/16/2016 10:05:55 AM PST by nickcarraway
Pat Wright loves ferrets — a forbidden love in California, where owning the animals has been illegal since 1933. The state's complex ecosystem and ferrets' outlaw reputation as chicken killers make the weasel-like creature verboten here and in Hawaii.
Like many ferret owners whose malfeasance gets reported to the Department of Fish and Wildlife, Wright says he's paid a high price for his pets. He's served 17 days in a maximum security prison, performed 300 hours of community service, and shouldered civil lawsuits, all because he refuses to quit his decades-long crusade to grant ferrets the same legal standing as dogs and housecats.
California ferret lovers circulated a petition to qualify ferret legalization for the 2016 ballot, but with only 10,000 signatures gathered, they fell far short of the 365,880 required. Their next move, Wright says, is to form a Super PAC of ferret lobbyists, and recruit politicians sympathetic to their cause. (So far, nobody has endorsed them.)
Momentum is slow-going, because ferret owners prefer to remain anonymous. Few will out themselves for fear of agents raiding their homes, as happened to Wright in San Diego.
Still, the Bay Area chapter of the Golden State Ferret Society boasts about a dozen dedicated members — whose last names and addresses are secret to Donna Hazelwood, the society's vice president.
"We don't tell anybody we can't trust. We don't tell neighbors," she says. "But my ferrets are the only things I'd go to jail for."
So sad. Its hard to lose them. We lost our 17.5 year old Beagle about a year ago and are still not over it.
The American mink is native to California and these idiots want ferrets, why?
In Colorado, owning ferrets is legal and they are advertised on CL here.
They make affectionate pets.
Clean as house cats and as playful.
I found one once......It escaped from a punk who lived in the next apartment building.
I was washing my car on the side of my building when an old black lady walked by and said she had just seen a weasel. I had to laugh at that. A few minutes later, sure enough, the little guy came around the corner of my building so I picked him up and took him inside and placed him in a pet container I had.
I was going to keep him since I had always wanted one but I couldn't stand the musky smell. So Monday morning I took it to a vet who was part of a ferret rescue group that had been established here in Michigan after they had become legalized......
[Snip]
Wild minks can be tamed if caught young, but can be difficult to handle and are usually not handled bare-handed. In the late 19th century, tame American minks were often reared for ratting, much as ferrets were used in Europe. They are more effective ratters than terriers, as they can enter rat holes and drive rats from their hiding places. Because of their fondness for bathing, captive American minks may enter kettles or other open water-containing vessels. When minks of wild stock are confined with tame ones, the latter invariably dominate the former. They have also been known to dominate cats in confrontations. Though intelligent, minks are not quick to learn tricks taught to them by their owners. Though domestic minks have been bred in captivity for almost a century, they have not been bred to be tame. Domestic minks have been bred for size, fur quality, and color. However, the U.S. Fur Commission claims "mink are truly domesticated animals", based on the number of years they have been kept on fur farms.
I’m very late to this thread, but happened to hit on it tonight.
I’m a great fan of ferrets, and have had reason to learn a lot about them. They’ve been used to run line for electricity, cable, etc., for a very long time - especially in Britain. (And Marshall ferrets are very nice ones, both in terms of temperament and beauty - if you’re used to Marshall ferrets, and go to a pet shop and see the average one sold there, they look almost like different species. The Marshalls are very refined.)
-JT
2011 : () The situation has its roots in 2011, when the NSABB suppressed two studies involving H5N1 viruses that had been modified to allow airborne transmission from ferret to ferret. They worried that malign actors could replicate the work to deliberately cause an outbreak in human beings. After much debate, the studies were published in full in 2012. HHS subsequently issued guidelines for funding decisions on experiments likely to result in highly pathogenic H5N1 viruses transmissible from mammal to mammal via respiratory droplets. The guidelines were later expanded to include H7N9 viruses.https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(18)30006-9/fulltext
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