As I acquired two older ferrets who spent their entire lives in a zoo
education program, I personally would ask the following two questions
--

· How often will the ferrets get time out of their cage to run around
and get exercise as opposed to time out of the cage being handled,
crated, and used in programs?

· When is the point that the ferrets will be retired to live their
lives as pets rather than an education animal?

I volunteer at my local zoo. When I first started volunteering, I found
out that the zoo had ferrets in their education program. Every time I
worked, I asked the person responsible for the education animals if I
could have the ferrets. I spent as much time with them as possible.
When the zoo evaluated education animals to determine which were being
used or weren't, the ferrets were declared as not being used. At that
point, I was finally allowed to acquire them. I took them straight to
my vet and then home. As they were old, they only spent a year with
us. But I was happy they got to spend that year as pets rather than
education animals. It was especially fun at Christmas time when they
saw a box of wrapping paper for the first time. My husband put them in
the middle of the box, and they had the time of their lives. Many teasr
are running down my cheeks as I fondly remember those two.

In my opinion, ferrets are too wiggly to be used as education animals
and need more run/exercise time than a zoological facility can provide.

Anon

RIP my babies from the zoo -- Felix and Oscar

[Posted in FML 6580]