March 3, 2008
By Lisa Anderson
Chicago Tribune
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A domesticated ferret, banned -- unfairly, some people contend
-- in parts of the nation
About the critters
- Ferrets, domesticated for more than 2,000 years, are used
to hunt rabbits, rid ships of vermin and carry guide wires for
cabling through pipes.
- Male ferrets are called hobs; females, jills; and babies,
kits.
- Of the 6 million U.S. owners of small animals, 8 percent have
ferrets.
- The cost of a ferret averaged $88 in 2006.
- Ferret owners spend an average of $105 a year on supplies,
such as litter and sleeping hammocks; $79 on nonsurgical veterinary
expenses; $73 on food; $73 on toys; and $14 on grooming. (Ferrets
risk intestinal blockages from ingesting small objects as well
as diseases of the adrenal gland and pancreas -- which carry
costly treatments.)
- Hyperactive when awake, a ferret sleeps about 18 hours a day.
- Average weight at maturity: 1 to 5 pounds.
- Typical life span: six to 10 years.
Sources: American Ferret Association,
2007-08 survey of pet owners by the American Pet Products Manufacturers
Association
NEW YORK -- So cute. So cuddly. So illegal.
In an animal-loving nation that spends more than $41 billion a year
on its 382 million assorted Marmadukes, Sylvesters, Tweetys, Nemos,
Mickeys and Flickas, one popular pet is considered an outlaw in some
parts of the country.
Ferrets -- the slinky, mink-y cousins of skunks, badgers, weasels
and polecats -- amount to fauna non grata in New York, Salt Lake
City and many other municipalities as well as the states of California
and Hawaii, and the commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Who knew?
Owners are painfully aware of such laws, continuing to fight them
as groundless. (Ferrets are permitted in Ohio.)
According to estimates from the American Pet Products Manufacturers
Association, about 500,000 people own about 2 million ferrets.
Ferret folks claim numbers that are much higher.
And, given the multitude of ferret clubs, ferret-oriented
Web sites and frolicsome ferret videos on YouTube, they might be
right.
Regardless, ferret fans are furious over the designation
of "fuzzies" as fugitives.
"Martin Luther King said an injustice anywhere is
a threat to justice everywhere -- and this is an injustice," said
David Gaines of the legal and legislative affairs committee of
the American Ferret Association.
"We're not talking about Darfur or 9/11, but it is
an injustice. All domesticated companion animals -- and ferrets
are domesticated -- should be treated equally."
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals agrees.
"The whole thing is ridiculous," said Lisa Weisberg,
senior vice president for government affairs and public policy
at the society, which opposed the 1999 ban on ferrets in New York.
"It seems there was some confusion between wild ferrets
and the European stoat, which people keep as pets," Weisberg said. "The
European stoat was domesticated a thousand years ago."
There are wild ferrets -- most notably the
North American black-footed ferret, which biologists are coaxing
back from the
brink of extinction -- but they are not the
same
as their domesticated cousins.
Nonetheless, bans on ferrets, though gradually being
lifted, remain in many parts of the nation.
In California, an underground ferret railroad
helps owners elude state border checkpoints where
Department of Fish & Game agents might check for the animals
and confiscate them.
Exceptions are apparently made for thespian ferrets.
The clever creatures have appeared, sometimes prominently,
in movies, including The Beastmaster, The
Big Lebowski, Mars Attacks! and Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire, in which snotty rival Draco
Malfoy is memorably morphed into a white ferret as punishment.
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