WOLVERINES!
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."
Don’t know about careers, but there’s lots of weasels in the CA legislature.
I have a ferret.....................
Named Stinker...................
Meanwhile, Hawaii is overrun with mongoose that kills birds.
California is truly the land of fruits and nits. (But not ferrets.)
Ive had neighbors who had these. Aren’t they basically a wild animal?
They were illegal in Michigan too when I lived there.
Inquiring minds wonder.
Does the class of ferrets include The Donald?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth?
WOLVERINES!
All I know is the little buggers will not hold still long enough to pop with my pellet rifle.
East Tennessee is over run with stray cats that kill birds
I assume they are stray when they kill my birds and chipmunks
Used to be a gerbil would suffice.
I dunno about wolverines, but apparently someone brought ferrets into the state in the 19th. century, and they hunted something damned near into extinction. That’s why they were illegal. That law was apparently repealed in 1994.
And a Richard Geer Habi-trail.
Really silly to have the ban, I know that there are thousands of people that own ferrets in the state, hell the democrats have one in the governor’s and many more in the state capitol, well actually their weasels, but from the same family.
I would have guessed a badger, rather than a ferret, for you.
...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...Yeah, this is as big an issue as the Oregon standoff. :')
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