Dear Ferret Folks-
 
I have seen squabbles come and squabbles go in the few years that I have
been on the FML, but I have never seen anything like this!  I have never
before seen a squabble LEAVE the FML daily forum itself and show up in my
mailbox in the form of unsolicited personal appeals from individuals to
see their "side" of things in the Rescue/Shelter debate.  I understand
that there are other ferret forums out there, and that right now people
belonging to one "side" or the other have had to leave because they are
no longer wanted there.  I think that we can do better here.
 
Lets stop and look at this debate carefully.  It is really *two* debates.
One is purely acedemic.  How do we define a Shelter?  Rescue?  Personal
Ferret?  Unadoptable ferret?  etc.  It gets into more complex questions,
like "is an unadoptable ferret not the same as a personal ferret?  These
are legitimate questions.  They may or may not interest you if you are
just a ferret slave, and not someone operating in the Shelter/Rescue
community, but I think that even the ferret slaves among us can tolerate
this debate without any problem.  Read it, or scroll by.
 
There is a *second* debate going on that I think should concern everyone
on the FML, because we have something wonderful here, and this second
debate is a very troubled one.  It is two-pronged.  First, it is an
arguement that one particular FML member is essentially pretending to
be operating a Shelter/Rescue in order to sell bedding.  By doing so,
the question is, is this person taking revenue away from "legitimate"
Shelter/Rescues?  The debate goes on and on, there is no concensus.
It is like asking wether allowing gay marriage destroys hetrosexual
marriage.  Everyone has an opinion, (some very heated), but there is not
likely to be any concensus any time soon.  To date, it cannot be proven
one way or another.  I, as a ferret slave, feel that nobody can *make*
me buy anything that I don't want to buy, and if I do buy, it is my
"mistake" to make.  I respectfully suggest to the real heroes out there,
the Shelter/Rescue folks mired in this debate, that as a consumer, my
dollars are not earmarked for you or anyone else.  I buy where I buy,
and this debate is probably not going to change the minds of most of the
ferret slave market currently belonging to the FML.
 
I am not going to pay any more attention to the first prong of this
debate unless and until it clearly differentiates itself from the
*second*, which is an inherently personal one, and is as acrimonious as
anything I have ever seen on the FML.  It is a personal attack on the
charachter of the FML member who may deliberately be styling themselves
as a Rescue/Shelter in order to sell bedding.  Then again, what if this
person is innocent, not guilty, or even as has been charged, an "animal
collector", as ugly a term as can probably be thrown around on this
forum?
 
We have not yet, in what, two weeks?  Concisely defined just what is
meant by a Rescue.  Shelter is a little easier, because of the tax status
that a registered shelter can obtain from the government.  This person
may innocently believe that they are running a Rescue, when others
would prefer to define the ferrets involved as being "personal ones" (not
yet that we have concisely defined the difference between "permanently
unadoptable" and "personal", and not for lack of trying.)  There is room
for reasonable doubt here, and if *my* charachter were being publicly
shredded and, potentially, my home business being ruined, I would hope
that my peers on this forum would take the issue of reasonable doubt into
consideration.  As I said earlier, there are several ferret forums where
these debates are raging, and we here on the FML are only seeing part of
the picture.  Are some scores being settled on those boards?  Animosities
generated there bleeding over to ours?
 
I KNOW that this is hurting us.  Yesterday a lady who has been involved
in this debate (and I am not judging her role there one way or another)
wrote to us :
 
>i PLAN on this being my last post on here other than what i do for a
>living and for other people and SOS...
 
That bothers me.  It bothers the hell out of me that this lady is feeling
like she needs to duck and cover.  When did this forum become about
"sides?" Is she getting the same scary stuff in her inbox that I'm
getting, as someone who knows people on both "sides?"
 
Enough personal bashing.  Enough.
 
Alexandra in MA
Probably going to have a hand reach right through my monitor and choke me
for saying *anything* about this.
 
[Moderator's note: If subscribers are sending unsolicitied e-mail to
other subscribers please let me know.  If it can be documented I will
remove them from the FML -- as mentioned, we do not need that!  BIG]
[Posted in FML issue 4545]