Recently, there has been discussion on some other boards about the
situation with Soren Thinggard and his Angora ferrets.  Because more
people read the FML then any other list, I am posting this information
here, even though it hasn't really been discussed here.
 
For those that have not heard about this, here is a brief synopsis of the
situation.
 
Soren Thinggard is a Danish breeder that breeds the true Angora ferrets.
He ships these ferrets to a number of places, including the US.  The
source for his ferrets here in the US has been Parrots of the World, in
Long Island, NY.  For those that are not familiar with Parrots, it is
the pet store run by Marc Morrone, who used to appear with his animals
on Martha Stewart's TV show.
 
Apparently, in Europe, there have been changes made to the required
minimum size of cages for ferrets, and Soren's cages do not meet the
new standards.  The new rules take effect on January 1, 2005, and he
is supposed to have his cages up to the new standard by then.
 
Here is where the problem comes.  Soren claims he does not have the
necessary funds to obtain new cages for his breeding colony of 1,000
ferrets.  Therefore, he wants to sell 850 of the ferrets and use the
proceeds of the sale to obtain new cages for his remaining 150 ferrets.
 
Now, attached to this story are a lot of rumors, some of which may be
true.  Apparently, Soren has emailed some people in the US stating that
if he can not find a buyer for the 850 ferrets, he will gas all of the
ferrets on January 1.  He is asking $200,000.00 for the 850, and has said
he will only sell them as a lot.  This figure apparently does not include
any shipping costs, which would be considerable.
 
There are also stories of previous charges and convictions against Soren
for animal abuse.
 
Since Marc Morrone has been doing business with Soren for more then a
few years, I emailed him the other day, trying to find out what was
true about the situation, and what was rumor.  When he replied to me,
he indicated that he was suddenly receiving a number of emails, some of
them overly emotional, about the situation, and asked me to share his
reply with interested parties.  Therefore, for any that are interested,
here is Marc's reply.
**********************
 
My goodness-what a tempest.  I recived two e-mails about this first thing
in the morning and I casually answered back that things are not always as
they seem and people should not be judgemental about second hand
information and I received very emotional replies back.
 
Plus then I got about 20 more letters since then and since yours is the
last I will tell you all that I know and perhaps you can foward this to
everyone as I just have not the time to answer everybody.
 
Now here we go-first of all there are 900 ferrets on Soren's farm.  There
is nobody at all in the US that could bring in that many ferrets.  Even
if Soren gave the animals away for free the shipping costs would be out
of this world-for me to import 12 little baby ferrets from Soren in 2
boxes costs almost $3,000 between shipping and custom clearance and such
and it takes so long to clear them that it drags into the middle of the
night so you have to pay customs overtime charges-now imagine a shipment
of 450 to 900 boxes-you could put a few jills in one box together but the
adult hobs have to travel in separate boxes.
 
Then you need vans or trucks to carry the boxes and plus you need
someplace here to put the animals.  Even if you brought in 50 adult
animals it is still a huge undertaking and the animals can only come into
Kennedy Airport or Newark Airport so you then have to coordinate shipping
to other parts of the US that would be the ferret's final destination and
that means more transportation charges.
 
When I have to ship 6 ferrets in one week to different parts of the
country it is a grueling task for me and the folks getting the ferret.
The only place in the US that has the money to do all this is Marshall
Farms and I talked to Peter Reid up there about it-they decided not to
bring the angoras in as they are afraid that if they did then their
colony of ferrets may pick up an ECE virus from the new ferrets and that
would cause all kinds of problems.
 
The same situation would apply with Path Valley or Triple F Farms-once
you have bred a closed colony of animals you are loathe to bring in
outside animals especially with an animal like a ferret that can suffer
still from virus that are unknown to us.  Now I have mixed Soren's
ferrets with my own as well as kits from Triple F and Path Valley Farm
and all is well here-no virus at all- but I do not make my living from
breeding ferrets so I cannot fault the three major ferret farms for not
wanting to bring the animals to their own facility.
 
Now most likely Soren thinks that there really is a chance that there is
someone here that will buy all the animals so as a salesman that would
explain why he is sounding so hard about the whole thing.  I personally
do not agree with this philosophy but then again I am not a good
businessman or a good salesman.  I make a living by running a pet store
and being on a small syndicated tv show and that is about it but I do my
best to do and say the right thing-but that is me-I cannot fault other
people for not having my values.
 
Now as far as Sorens' animal husbandry situation- my brother in law
lives in Copenhagen and in 1976 he asked me for a ferret and I said that
it would cost a bundle for me to ship a US bred ferret to him and most
likely he should get one form a Danish breeder.  So he went to Soren's
and walked around his place and took photos and sent the photos back
to me.  I looked at the photos and it looked like any other commercial
ferret farm-ferrets in suspended wire cages in outdoor barns with
attached nest boxes full of straw.  The ferrets looked fine and I gave
my brother in law the OK to go ahead and buy.  He ended up buying two
angoras from Soren and he introduced Soren to me and that is how we met.
 
I was fasinated by these angora ferrets and still am.  So every summer
since 1996 I have imported Soren's ferrets and the kits have always
arrived fat and healthy and well packed-I also have clients in Japan
that import Soren's ferrets and they have also had very good results.
 
As far as articles and such about Soren-if you do a Google search engine
about me you will find lots of articles about me that say how awfull I
treat my animals and what a mean and money grubbing animal dealer I am
and the people making these acusations always seem to have lots of
evidence to prove it.  However most people that meet me face to face or
see my store with thier own eyes do like me and I always reserve
judgement based on my own experiance-every animal I received or my
friend's in other parts of the world received from Soren were tip top.
 
My brother in law says that pet people in Copenhagen seem to hate Soren
and are always publishing nasty articles about Soren so I do not know-
but- my brother in law still goes to Soren's to buy his ferret's food and
everything seems fine to him.  The animal right's people in Europe make
Peta look like little old ladies and I would not want them on my case as
they are now on Soren's because they never give up.
 
Soren did not bring any of these current problems on himself-these were
new rules pushed thru in the Europe and Soren is trying decide what his
options are based on the current circumstances.  I am not a commercial
breeder of animals who has a family to support based on those animals
so I cannot say what I would say or do in such a situation.
 
I do not argue that Sorens' words are not harsh-but then again he is from
a different culture than we are plus he speaks hardly any English.  If
the animals are gassed it is not Soren's doing -it is the doing of the
people that pushed the new housing rules thru-if Soren gave the animals
away tommorrow for free then nobody here still could not import them into
the US due to the situations described above.
 
It is my personal opinion that most likely the animals will end up at the
last minute at one of the large commercial farms in Holland or Sweden.
Or perhaps an extension will be granted to Soren when the authorities
realize the extent of what they are doing.  I very much doubt that all
Soren's animals will be gassed as everyone seems to be worrying about.
 
Now this is a very long e-mail so be sure to read it all very carefully
and at least three times before you think about things-this is a very
emotional subject and I trust you to be very carefull in letting other
ferret people here read this as surely someone will take what I have
said the wrong way and I surely do not want to get anyone angry at me.
Something is happening that never happened before and we have to sit
back and wait and see for a while before we all get hysterical.
 
Sincerly Marc Morrone
--
Danee
International Ferret Congress Health Issues Coordinator
http://ferretcongress.org
ADV - If your ferret hasn't been tested, you don't know!
For more information visit: http://www.ferretadv.com
You can help fight ADV! Visit:
http://help4adv.terrabox.com/
[Posted in FML issue 4703]