I totally understand your reason for not wanting pet stores to sell
volumes of ferrets.  I'm in agreement with you as to the problem.  But
I'm not in agreement with your logic and solution to the problem.
 
To stop ferrets from being dumped you first have to stop ferrets from
being sold.  That means sold by anyone - Petco, Petsmart, your local
pet shop, ect... I think your logic is that if Petsmart started selling
ferrets along with Petco there'd be twice as many ferrets sold, or
something along that line.  So why pick on Petsmart?  Because they sold
ferrets after Petco was already selling them?  The first ferret-seller
wins?  How do we determine which pet store chain gets to profit from
selling ferrets?  What's your reasoning?
 
Maybe we should go right to the source.  That would be Marshall and Path.
They "manufacture" them and sell them to the pet stores in mass, from
Petco on down to your local pet store.  If you want to stop the sale of
ferrets you have to slow down the volume of ferrets Marshall and Path
produce.  Good luck.  Don't get me wrong.  I would be glad to see
Marshall and Path slow their output to next to nothing.  But they won't.
It's marketing to them.  It's their business.  They'll keep making them
and we'll keep buying them, of this I'm sure.
 
It's because we buy ferrets that there's a problem.  We're the demand -
the responsible ferret owners - right along with the irresponsible ferret
owners who end up dumping their ferrets when they realize that ferrets
are either too hard or too expensive to own.  You can't separate the
responsible owners from the irresponsible ones at the pet store.  How
would you know?  And if you did know - by what means would you stop them?
 
So we go with private breeders.  Sounds like a good idea at first.  We
get rid of Marshall and Path and it opens up a whole new demand for
private breeders.  Along with the private breeders who exist for the love
of the animal we now have private breeders who exist for the profit of
the sale.  We now have irresponsible buyers AND breeders.  And we still
have the original problem.  How do you stop irresponsible ferret owners
from buying ferrets from private breeders?  Again, how can you tell?  If
you or I - the responsible ferret owner - can buy ferrets from private
breeders then so can anyone.  And they will.
 
Then there's another problem.  Ferrets sold at pet stores have to be
spayed or neutered.  I'm not sure what the law says, but I've never seen
a whole ferret at a pet store.  I think it's illegal in most places.
Private breeders would be much more likely to sell whole ferrets.  It
would be much harder keeping track of whether or not ferrets were sold
whole by private breeders.  And even if there were laws to limit the
sale of whole ferrets by private breeders they would eventually be
broken.  That's just human nature.  Don't get me wrong.  I have nothing
against most private breeders as they exist now.  I would love to buy
my next ferret from a responsible private breeder as a kit and have it
spayed/neutered at 6 months.  I would do that.  But I'm betting your
average ferret-dumper probably wouldn't.  It would cost money.  It would
require thought.  Most people mean well, but you can imagine the outcome.
It hurts my head to think about it.
 
I think the only "real" solution to the problem of ferret overpopulation
is to classify ferrets as exotics and grant permits to ferret owners and
make it fairly hard to obtain those permits.  That would basically mean
shutting down the sale of ferrets to the general public.  And while it
would be a real solution, it wouldn't be a very pragmatic or popular one.
And I doubt that it would ever happen.  I've seen the ferret community
fight those laws when they were introduced.  And maybe for good reason.
 
We're a duplicitous community.  We're thrilled when ferrets show up in
movies, but we're dismayed when they become more popular as pets.  We
want ferret-wise veterinarians to be plentiful, but we don't want a
ferret population that would encourage veterinarians to become
ferret-wise.  We want to have our ferrets, even though ferrets are
difficult and expensive to keep.  But we don't want others having them
because, well... because they're difficult and expensive to keep.  We
trust ourselves to be responsible.  We just don't trust the other guy.
 
I don't think picking on a particular pet store is the answer.  I don't
know what the answer is, but maybe we should start by weeding out what
the answers aren't.  Picking on Petsmart to express our frustration is
not an answer.  If we're ever going to come up with a solution to this
problem we need to stop spinning our wheels.
 
Roary
Albuquerque, NM
[Posted in FML issue 4704]