Ferret fanciers live caged lifestyles

By Denis Cuff
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

A ferret peers out from an enclosure during a gathering of ferret owners and their pets at Kimberly Bruno's home in Concord. Bruno and other ferret owners are renewing efforts to legalize ownership of the animals in California.

Kathleen Reardon hid her cuddly, curious and illegal pets for 10 years before burglars kicked down her front door on a cold January night and exposed her to the bite of California's ban on ferrets.

"Don't ask, don't tell" is the hallmark of the state's regulation of the ferret, a smallish otter cousin barred for environmental reasons in California but legal in every other state on the continent.

The burglars unknowingly dragged Reardon across the line.

When police responding to the burglary found nine ferrets nestled in their cages inside her Antioch home, Reardon felt the fear that unites and haunts California's underground culture of ferret owners: the risk of losing her pet family.

Ferret owners say their illegal status has influenced their lifestyles.

They meet in clandestine clubs, on Internet sites, at surreptitious suburban pool parties where guests are screened, and in political discussions to continue a 15-year campaign to legalize the pets.

Some even meet in the ferret sections of pet stores that openly sell ferret food, toys and hammocks.

"You have to worry who your friends are, what your co-workers and neighbors know and that you don't get in arguments with people who know you are a ferret owner and might turn you in," said Lili, a ferret owner from Brisbane. "You can be held hostage because of your pet."

When Reardon arrived home that winter day after her night shift as a hospital nurse, Antioch animal control officers were hauling away her pets to the city animal shelter. Distraught, she had a heart attack.

"I was a crime victim," Reardon said in an interview. "My house was invaded, but this one police officer told me I was the criminal."

When she got out of the hospital a week later, Reardon decided the state had abandoned her and her favorite animals.

So she abandoned her native state.

Reardon, 43, moved to Nevada, legally claimed her exiled pets from a shelter there, and started over with a new house and job in ferret-free territory.

In the ferret underground, Reardon's experience was a poignant reminder of how much the illegal status of ferrets shapes the lives of people who own them.

Jeanne Carley of Woodside, a long-time leader in California's ferret legalization movement, said she knows of ferret owners turned in by spouses they were divorcing.

While Kimberly Bruno is willing to identify herself as a ferret owner -- "I'm out of the closet" -- she is cautious about who she lets in her Concord house.

"If a stranger shows up at our front door, we know not to let them in without a search warrant," Bruno said, echoing advice distributed on ferret club Web sites.

At a ferret pool party at Bruno's house last weekend, organizers required first-time guests to meet club members in advance.

Once they passed muster, the guests were given the address to the party house discretely marked with bright balloons but no signs at the curbside.

In the home's pool, ferret owners held ferret races. Four ferrets swam away from the finish line in four different directions, crossing tails in the confusion.

Owners called it typical behavior of the independent, social and clever animals that have become popular American pets in the last 30 years.

Some call them sock puppets with legs. Others call them kittens that never grow up.

Ferrets explore and socialize relentlessly in their waking hours, and then they sleep for 18 to 20 hours.

State environmental regulators call ferrets trouble, the latest in a long line of non-native species that threaten to kill and crowd out California native birds and wildlife.

The non-native red fox is one, preying on endangered shoreline birds.

If pet ferrets escape and form colonies in the wild, the carnivores with sharp teeth could make mincemeat of birds and small mammals, argue biologists with the California Department of Fish and Game.

"Just because they are cute and cuddly doesn't mean they are harmless," said Steve Martarano, a Fish and Game spokesman.

Ferret owners contend California's environment faces no greater risk than that of the other 48 continental states that legalize ferrets as pets.

Hawaii is considered a special case because it is a fragile island environment where the non-native mongoose ravaged native bird populations, they say.

Besides, ferret owners say, breeders commonly neuter the animals long before they are smuggled into California.

Domesticated ferrets also are fragile, prone to cancer and heat stroke, making them unlikely to survive in the wild, their owners say.

In a 1997 survey, the California Fish and Game department reported that no state had found that domestic ferrets had formed feral colonies in the wild.

No one knows how many ferrets are in California, though various estimates peg the total at tens or hundreds of thousands.

"If they become legal, the fear is that there would become more of them and the risk is greater," Martarano said.

After years of setbacks, ferret owners persuaded California lawmakers in 2004 to pass a bill giving amnesty to ferrets whose owners paid a $75 registration fee.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill, however, stunning ferret lovers who had expected more sympathy from an actor who worked with a ferret in the movie "Kindergarten Cop."

The governor said it would be premature to legalize ferrets without studying potential environmental impacts. One pending bill would do just that, legalizing ferrets if a study showed no threat.

Meanwhile, some frustrated ferret advocates are struggling to round up support to mount a petition drive to put a legalization ballot measure before voters.

Other owners say they lack the money for an expensive media campaign.

Besides, they ask, how can an underground minority persuade the majority of voters to care about a pet rarely seen in public?

As ferrets remain illegal, groups have sprung up to find homes for impounded, abandoned or unwanted ferrets to spare them from being euthanized, as was commonly done in the 1980s.

The nonprofit California Domestic Ferret Association is licensed by the state to rescue impounded ferrets and transport them to adoptive homes out of state.

The group calls its operation the ferret underground railroad.

The railroad relocates about 300 ferrets a year out of state, but still cannot keep up with the demand, said Hildy Langewis, the ferret association rescue coordinator.

"Our volunteers are stretched to the breaking point. We can't keep up," said Langewis.

In one part of Southern California, Fish and Game regional authorities require her rescue organization to pay a professional courier service to drive rescued ferrets out of state.

No one tracks how many ferrets are confiscated in California or how many people voluntarily give up their pets under pressure from law enforcement agencies.

Martarano said fish and game wardens do not have the time to go looking for ferrets but cannot ignore cases that are pointed out to them.

Linda Soule said she moved from Discovery Bay to Gardnerville, Nev., a few years ago because she feared her ferrets eventually would be discovered.

"I always worried something would turn me in," Soule said.

Now she cares for rescued ferrets in her house.

Reardon said she anguished over the fate of her pet family's uncertain future as she lay in the hospital after her heart attack.

"It was traumatic," she said. "I had to give up a nice home and a good paying job to be with my ferrets. But it was worth it. I'm freer now. I don't have to look over my shoulder."