Hello,
 
Sorry to butt in unannounced, but the controversy over junk-food treats
reminds me of similar controversies I've seen over the years in my day
job writing about things like movies, comics and video games.  I hope you
don't mind if I compare the ferret-owning populace with fans of comics
for a moment -- ferrets are a much healthier hobby to have, yes, but both
groups have tremendous passions for their pursuits, and both can get
deeply emotional when defending their views.
 
A little while ago, there was a furor over a Japanese comic that was
heavily censored for nudity when released in America.  This comic has
a large legion of fans on the net, and when they found out what the
US publisher had done to the work, they were livid.  Boycotts were
announced, letter-writing campaigns were staged, and people made a point
of keeping the topic a constant issue in comic forums for months at a
time.  Eventually fans called for boycotting the entire comic lineup of
the publisher in question, and others claimed that the whole experience
had disillusioned them so greatly that they would simply stop buying
English releases of Japanese comics altogether -- they'll import the
Japanese originals and read them alongside amateur translations instead.
 
Has this boycott campaign worked?  Not really.  The comic itself has sold
decently -- it's not a smash hit, but it's not a flop, either.  However,
the publisher was counting on the comic to sell more, and one editor's
had to leave the company as a result.  What's more, the controversy has
sparked a witch hunt of sorts in the Japanese-comic world, with people
actively hunting down alterations in US releases and calling for
company-wide boycotts when they're found, even if the change is trivial.
This has succeeded mainly in bitterly dividing the fanbase for these
comics and creating a deep rift between readers and comic publishers.  In
a way, you could almost say that readers calling for wide-scale boycotts
like these are their own worst enemy -- since they don't understand the
reasoning behind the decisions to alter Japanese comics for US release,
they reject it entirely, less money is spent on comics, and thus the
industry becomes even smaller and harder to survive in than it is now.
In other words, uneducated boycotts in this niche market don't change
anything and simply hurt the entire marketplace instead -- customers and
companies.
 
What does this have to do with ferrets (a niche market compared to other
pets)?  Well, think about it.  The Ferret Store will not halt the sale
of junk-food treats outright, and some are responding by rejecting the
seller entirely.  People say they will never use the store again, and
others say they will take their business to other stores, even though
those stores may have different, but equally questionable things they do
involving ferrets.  They ignore the fact that The Ferret Store is just
like those comic publishers -- they sell a huge variety of products, they
take great pains to act for the welfare of their customers, and much more
than Petco or PetSmart, they are at the mercy of the whims of their
customers for survival.
 
If, like in the comics world, a general boycott of The Ferret Store
gathered steam, the result would not be the elimination of junk-food
treats.  The result would be needless animosity between ferret owners,
job losses at The Ferret Store, and -- once people lose interest, as they
always do eventually -- the same junk-food treats that we have in stores
now, because nobody told customers why they're bad for ferrets.
 
k
[Posted in FML issue 4888]