Once again I will try to clarify a few things that continue to be
misconstrued.....

1. There is an organization named the American Ferret Association, Inc.
   (AFA) which is a 501(c)3 educational organization.
2. The AFA has members worldwide.
3. Some of those members are private hobby ferret breeders.
4. Some of those hobby ferret breeders have an AFA Breeder Membership.

That's it. The AFA provides guidelines for good husbandry practices
but there are no AFA Ferret Breeders. AFA does not breed ferrets.
Individual private hobby ferret breeders do. The AFA does not regulate
these ferret breeders other than recognizing them in the database as a
breeder member which gives them a few perks over basic or other
membership types.

This is the same for AFA member veterinarians - there are no AFA
Veterinarians - just veterinarian members. And this is the same for
shelters - we list shelters on our website and do not require listed
shelters to be AFA members, but these are not AFA Shelters.

Many known ferret people wear many different hats. The AFA only has
some say when you are wearing an AFA hat.

What AFA has are:

Governing Board Members
Executive Board Members
Committee Directors
Committee Members
Title & Specialty Judges
Members

There are no AFA Breeders or AFA Veterinarians or AFA Shelters or AFA
Chefs or AFA Mechanics or AFA Radio Personnel, etc., etc., etc.

Vickie McKimmey

Director of Shows and Special Events
American Ferret Association, Inc.
www.ferret.org

[Posted in FML 7182]