In response to the questions from Ferritsofall posted on Sat, 12 Jan
2008 (digest 5850)

>Do you have any knowledge of a book being written by Lori

I have heard that Lori is writing a book. I do not know if it is true
or rumor, but I suspect it is true. I found out from reading the FML,
so I really do not know any more about it than the rest of the ferret
community.

>is this in its totality a study to be done as a school requirement
>that will not be used in any way by Lori?

The idea of doing this study was solely for the purposes of a school
project. But I thought the ferret community would appreciate being able
to see the results also. There are so many people that pulled together
from all over the nation, and I thought it would be awesome to show
were the support came from and were the DMK kids went.

>Will anyone be allowed to publish your findings in a book or article?

I never really gave it much thought until you brought it up. I
personally am not going to publish anything from these findings. (other
than building a website to post the results). My intial thought was
to make the data available to anyone who wanted it, in the event they
wanted to further the study and continue to track them after the study
is completed. I am glad that you brought this to my attention, because
I may need to put a copyright on my results. I do not really know the
legalities of copyrights (as I am a geography major, not a law student)
so if anyone has any thought on this please help me out, and let me
know the best way to handle this.

>Is a web site up now, or were you thinking of creating one later
>concerning the DMK ferts?

I do intend to post a website with my results. One has not been created
yet. It has been suggested to me to post intermittant results as I
collect the data. This might gain more interest from people who have
not decided to participate yet. Please understand, the semester just
started and the final mapping project is not due until the end of
April. I understand that collecting all this data will take a lot of
time and work on my part, so I wanted to start early. Data collection
is the most critical part of this project, and the participation from
everyone will determine ifthis project is even feasible. Right now, I
have not received enough responses to post anything. I have only
located approximately 25 of the 587 DMK kids. I would like to be able
to locate atleast 400 of them to concider this project a success. If I
could locate them all, that would be even better. I do agree that
intermitant results will be good to gain trust and interest in this
project. So, I will do this. But right now, I still do not even know
how I am going to display the results.

>How did you come to chose this particular situation?

I have been owned by ferrets since 1996. I currently have 12 ferrets
(aka my kids), 2 of which were rescued from Doug McKay's farm last
spring. They were not part of this huge surrender, so they are not part
of the study. I am going to school to become a GIS professional with
a focus on watershed management. But my real passion is my ferrets.
aahhh, yes, if only we could all make a living off of loving ferrets.

I am fairly new to the on-line ferret community, but in these last
several months I have come to learn that trust can be an issue. I hope
to have something up by next weekend so people can get to know me
better and the the purpose (or intentions) of this study. I am not sure
if it can be done in html, but I would like to include an on-line form
for people to fill out. Right now I am stuck using html, because that
is all the free web server on campus allows.

I would also like to note, that it has occured to me that the most
complete source of data for this project is Lori. Everyone who removed
ferrets from her property had to sign a contract. I believe that thos
contracts would provide me with the names and locations of the
individuals or shelters that took them. This would not only provide me
with initial locations of ferrets, but would also give me contacts for
tracking them down further. However, I do highly doubt she would be
willing to hand those contracts over to me freely. I have not asked,
but I am guessing she will not. I truely hoped that I would not even
have to ask. I hope that I can get the support of those who were
involved in this rescue, to have them step up and proide me with the
information I need.

I hope this has answered your questions. Please feel free to contact me
if you have any more concerns. Areminder to anyone who would like to
participate the survey form can be downloaded from
http://www.msu.edu/%7Ecrombezk/DMKsurvey.doc in MS Word format and
e-mailed to me directly at [log in to unmask]

Thank you.
Kathleen

[Posted in FML 5851]