>I was curious... how many states catorgorize ferrets as wild or exotic.
>And if a state is correct in their label of ferrets, then can a city...
>then go against that and label them differently?  How do state fish and
>game departments fit into all this if and when they do?  Is there a
>place where I can look this up for each state or something?  How hard
>is it to change such incorrect labels when they are found (such as on
>a state, and then an insurance level)?
>
>I'm not an activist, I'm just trying to learn and be better informed.
>
>Wolfy
 
In NJ I know there are separate categories for exotic pets that are
considered pets and those which are not considered pets.  In fact, a few
years back in Jersey City one of their beaurocrats read that wrong and
the head of FG&W here and the state public health veterinarian from the
health dept. were BOTH willing to testify FOR the ferret and her person.
 
Sometimes the designations are connected to permit monies.  In NJ
when Paul Kalka was the head of the FG&W he was talking about maybe
recommending switching ferrets to the agency that handles dog and cat
licensing when the rabies viral shedding studies were done (The assorted
studies took a number of years through the CDC, U GA, a rabies study lab
in the Kansas university system, etc.).  Anyway, at that point, FG&W
actually had decent funding.  They weren't rolling in money but they
were badly shortchanged, either.  Unfortunately, during Christy Whitman's
few years as governor the state went into debt hugely and the the funding
to the FG&W (and a number of other agencies) was badly impaired.  At this
point, FG&W really does need the permit money because NJ is still
climbing out from the debt run up in the CW years.  Heck, some of its
wildlife protection work has been partly funded by contributions since
those years; we were among those many folks who gave when we were able
to do so.
 
So, what we have is an agency which has a good deal of influence in terms
of their expertise and which is a friend to ferrets which categorizes
them as an exotic pet species and is willing to testify in court if a
locale goes against ferrets.  It would not be a good time to try to
change that status, but it may be possible to do so once the funding for
such agencies is once again secure, which means climbing out from the
economic pit that was dug, first.
 
(Yes, this is the same CW who is underfire for badly damaging
environmental protection as the current head of EPA as a Bush appointee.)
 
Anyway, sometimes it pays to figure out what can influence funding and
other nuances and then to put effort into things that won't cause rifts,
and to tackle some other things later.  So, it could very possibly make
sense to tackle age of sale and hoarding here now, and leave the category
for later when that effort won't undermine useful support for ferrets.
 
Gee, I wasn't exhausted yesterday, was I?  I'm climbing out from under an
infection, and I had an allergy shot and those do exhaust me.
 
The site is NOT Joyce's I attached the sentence mentioning the hunting
at the wfu site to the wrong paragraph when was directed to it!
Arrrggghhhh.  On top of that I lost part of a sentence.  Hey, not tired
or anything... (LOL!)
 
>Personally, when a town had to be fought here Joyce's (Dr. Beer) page
>on ferret art history was VERY important because it had so many old
>paintings of people snuggling up to ferrets.  Wish I hadn't lost her
>URL.  It also showed the tamer sides of hunting with them which the site
>http://home.worldonline.nl/~wfu/ferret.html
 
>also showed nicely so I was glad to find that one due to folks'
>suggestions and to also find that they have
>http://home.worldonline.nl/~wfu/drawings.html
>which has some (perhaps about half?) of the same art work that she
>displayed, plus one I haven't seen used before .
[Posted in FML issue 3963]