My personal computer is in the shop for a dead DVD/CD drive, the second
one that died in a week. The Apple guy thinks there might be a problem
with the motherboard. It should be fixed early next week after both are
replaced. Because of this, I have done very little emailing of late.

My computer time is courtesy of my son, but not enough to answer my
recent back log of email. I'll get to it after this weekend. Extremely
important stuff I'll answer with my son's machine, such as working out
the details of the TLE Challenge, or messages to Ferret Project people,
but I am limited to times and the amount of time.

 ----------

I leave for New Zealand in less than a month (March 13). My trip
itinerary sequence is: North & South Islands (New Zealand), Melbourne,
Sidney, & Brisbane and other locales in Queensland (Australia),
Singapore, Edinburgh and other locales (Scotland), London and other
locales (England), Paris & Angers (France), Casablanca (Morocco),
Madrid (Spain), Amsterdam and other locales (The Netherlands), Warsaw
(Poland), Berlin & Frankfort (Germany), Budapest (Hungary), Vienna
(Austria), and Rome and other locales (Italy). I will probably travel
to Switzerland, Sweden and Norway to talk to experts on carnassial
teeth, polecats, and farm ferrets, but only if time and money allow.
There is a good chance I might go to Ukraine to check out ferrets
there and collect DNA. There is a small chance I will go to one of the
Balearic Islands to check out the ferrets and collect DNA, but the cost
might be prohibitive even though the information could have a great
deal of importance DNA-wise. These locations are priorities, BUT I can
stop at ANY town accessed by Eurail, or even by bus, should ANY ferret
person request. The museums are very important, but so are pet ferrets,
so I am trying to divide my time equally for both.

I would greatly appreciate it if clubs and individuals from these
countries would contact me -- but be patient for my reply because
I HAVE to have the information for some areas before I can answer
questions for other areas. Right now it seems like I am caught in
a ferret loop where people are waiting on me to respond while I am
waiting on other people to respond. It will sort out soon. This trip is
like a long line of dominos, where each one has to fall in sequence to
allow me to move down the line. I have to know where the 3rd domino is
before I can place the 4th one. Also, this is the last research I will
do on this project, so I HAVE to finish the work in one area before
leaving for the next. These two problems makes it very, very hard to
predict exactly when and where I will be at any particular time. I plan
to send out weekly notices of progress to the FML, and notices several
times a week to those involved in the project, and those I plan to
visit.

The need for all the visits is simple. First, I want to document ferret
husbandry in places other than the USA. I will be documenting diet
and scoring the teeth and health of the ferrets consuming it. I'll be
photographing the ferrets to create an international database of
ferret coloration and variation. Also, I will be collecting ferret
hair and cheek scrapings for DNA analysis, which could help identify
genes/markers that might be responsible for or indicate possible
disease in ferrets. It might also show the relationships between
groups of ferrets better, or perhaps give clues that might be useful
in identifying the origin of the ferret. I need as much DNA as I can
collect (like with my skeletal and dental studies, I am trying to
sample to redundancy), so please, contact me as soon as possible so
that I can schedule a visit. I can and will go anywhere for this
project until the money runs dry and my banker cancels my credit
cards. I think this project is that important!

I think it is so important that if a single person contacts me to visit
their ferrets in any European country, I will do everything possible to
insure I can make the trip to that location. The DNA work alone makes
this extremely important to the world ferret community.

Thanks to all for their help and support! Just remember that I am
scheduling things in sequence as much as possible, so it might take
a week or two before I respond. I promise I will respond to each and
every email, but please be patient.

Bob C [log in to unmask]

[Posted in FML 5885]