I wrote:
>>One thing to recall with "natural" lighting is that some areas just
>>plain no longer even have dark nights.  Much of Australia does, in
>>fact, there many city areas are darker at night than much of U.S.
>>suburbia.

>Shirley replied:
>We often find that folk from overseas have a very different idea of
>what Australia is like compared to how it really is.

I didn't base that upon an impression.  Satellite measures show that
the light pollution in your continent is lower than in much of the rest
of the industrialized world.  Take a look at the sites provided.  I am
very aware that you have lit cities and suburbs, but you still manage
to have less light pollution, even in those areas. That is a good
thing.  I wish the same were true here, but it is not.

Shirley:
>I don't know why that is, but think that their exposure to sunlight
>or bright daylight means they can produce melatonin in the relatively
>dim lighting (nevertheless, not darkness) that is available at night.
>If that were the case they would differ from every other mammal ever
>studied.  Dim isn't enough.  A bit is produced then, but not much.

Me:
>>It's a lot more complicated than what is natural to humans, depending
>>on:  ferrets' own ancestral darkness time patterns being different
>>from ours and dependent on purloined burrows for much of the time,
>>the location of the home, the degree of light pollution, whether the
>>ferrets are whole or neutered, and possibly also genetics.

Shirley:
>I couldn't agree more, but what I do find with any type of companion or
>captive animal, the further we move from how they were evolved to live,
>the more problems arise.

My point being that our diurnal lifestyle is ***NOT*** their ancestral
norm in terms of lighting.  For them it is peak activity at times of
low lighting except when stress forces changes, so wild polecats
usually sleep day and night in purloined burrows and are most active
around dawn and dusk (crepuscular activity).

Shirley:
>I think our ferrets deserve as much thought going onto how they are
>kept and fed to PREVENT disease rather than trying to repair the damage
>that is caused by what is convenient for us.

Which is my point in terms of providing enough darkness.

-- Sukie (not a vet, and not speaking for any of the below in my
private posts)
Recommended health resources to help ferrets and the people who love
them:
Ferret Health List
http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth
FHL Archives
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
AFIP Ferret Pathology
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
Miamiferrets
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
International Ferret Congress Critical References
http://www.ferretcongress.org

[Posted in FML 5396]