There had been a posting on the FML a while back about St. Joseph
County, IN being a ferret free zone.  Since I was out that way for
Thanksgiving, I decided to try and get the details.
        I called the humane society first, since I didn't know where to call.
They said that the city of South Bend does not have a problem with ferrets, ut
that the city of Mishawaka does, and to call the township trustees.  Now, there
are 9 townships in the county - they really don't do much, and they don't have
their own police or anything, so I can't figure out how the townships (which
are similar in size to a high school school district) could actually enforce
anything.  Nonetheless I started calling.  The first township trustee's office
had no clue what I was talking about ("Uh, we only deal with dog licensing
here..."), and no one even answered the phone at the next two (this was Wed.
afternoon).  I gave up and tried to call the county Health Dept. (since
supposedly it was a county-wide ffz, calling the county made some sense).  They
didn't know anything, and had never heard of the question before.  I then
called the Mishawaka Mayor's office, since the humane society had said
Mishawaka was the one enforcing the thing.  They hadn't heard of the question
before, either, but they did check the codes for me.  Although ferrets aren't
explicitly listed as domestic animals, they aren't mentioned as illegal either
- they couldn't find anything in the codes about them at all, so they aren't
prohibited by any ordinances.
        I tried a few more times/places, but no one knew anything, nor had they
even heard of it being an issue.  So I called the police department.  They
can't enforce any laws they don't know about, right?  Well, the guy at the
Mishawaka Police Dept. said that there weren't any prohibitions against ferrets
that he knew of.  (Admittedly, its possible some policemen know about it and
others not, but that seems pretty weird.)  The woman at the South Bend police
department didn't know of anything, but her attitude was "How the heck would I
know what the laws are?"  (I refrained from asking her how she enforced the
laws if she didn't know them).
 
        Anyway, I have no idea who else to call.  (I scoured the goverment
section of the phone book for likely phone numbers).  It appears to be the case
that if there are ordinances against ferrets, they can't be too highly
enforced, or someone would have to know about them.  Wouldn't they?  If anyone
has any suggestions, I'm open to them (there were no listings for fish and
wildlife in the phone book, by the way).
 
Very confused,
Rochelle
[Posted in FML issue 1028]