The Italian ferrets video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZPf-2wdtWU)
is talking about how ferrets are domesticated, not wild. The man said
that ferrets can't live in the wild because the "faina sylvatico" was
already there and better suited to survive.

The Italian word for a sable is zibellino, which isn't used in the
story (and the scientific name is Martes zibellina). Sables are usually
darker and more uniformly colored ("sable" means "black"). They are a
threatened species and not native to Italy, and they were definitely
looking at this animal as a wild species that lives in Italy and is
related to the ferret. So I don't think this is a sable.

"Sylvatico" means "of the woods", or more figuratively, "wild". "Faina"
translates as "polecat", but as has already been stated, that animal
isn't what we call a polecat (which is Mustela species and looks much
more like a domesticated ferret). I thought at first it might be a Pine
Marten (I was using the "of the woods" translation for "sylvatico") but
then I saw a picture of a Stone Marten, "Martes foina", which in french
is called "fouine" (which could easily be "faina" in Italian).

Here is the picture of a Stone Marten:
<http://www.planetepassion.eu/MAMMALS-IN-FRANCE/stone-marten.Martes-foina.Fouine.France.jpg>
This looks a whole lot like our mystery fellow. The pic has a dark spot
in the middle of his chest, and I don't see that on the video, but it
could be that we never see that low on the chest in the video.

-Claire

[Posted in FML 6679]