Dear anonymous FML reader:
 
Your aunt's problem is not uncommon, and is a terrible situation that can
be blamed pretty squarely on the shoulders of the California Dept. of Fish and
Game.
 
<Everybody who has heard this story time and again in this forum can feel free
to skip ahead if they wish....>
 
What can she do to change the law?  Individually, zip.
 
BUT:  There is a movement afoot to change the law.  There are two
organizations (that I am aware of) working (sometimes together) to fix
the law.  The "California Domestic Ferret Association" and "Ferrets
Anonymous" are doing their best to get the prohibition repealed.
 
Thanks to Assemblyman Jan Goldsmith (San Diego) and Senator Quentin
Kopp (San Francisco) <round of applause for the pair> a bill was
introduced in Sacramento last session that would have changed the law.
It was doing OK until Willie Brown decided that he had a grudge against
Jan Goldsmith and shot the bill down.  That's politics sometimes....
(Gotta remember that we need ALL their support in the future.)
 
Well, the bill will be introduced again in the next legislative
session, and from what I have heard (granted, everybody wants to be a
prognosticator) there is general good feeling that it may be
passed--there is a good deal of grassroots support for the bill.
(Normally I hate the term "grassroots")
 
So what should your aunt do?
 
Well, I would say she should just go ahead and smuggle her ferrets
in--but there ARE border checkpoints in California, and there is a
chance (couldn't tell you what it is, but it is NOT insignificant) that
they would be caught and confiscated and possibly/probably killed.  If
she wants to be sure that they have long and healthy lives, she should
probably give them to a good home, and perhaps if the ban is repealed
in the next year or two she could go and retrieve them.
 
What she should most DEFINITELY do is to join Ferrets Anonymous and the
CDFA and lend her support to the campaign--the momentum is there, and
this may be the year the ban is overturned.  Here are some addresses:
 
California Domestic Ferret Assn.
P.O. Box 21040
Castro Valley, CA 94546
(510) 886-4210
Membership: $25/year sugg.
 
Ferrets Anonymous
P.O. Box 3395
San Diego, CA 92163
(619) 497-1084
Membership: $12/year sugg.
 
If she needs any more advice, feel free to contact me--I don't have a ferret
myself (because of the #%$@!&@ ban!!) so I don't have to be anonymous.  Hope
she finds a course of action she is comfortable with.  Good Luck!
 
James Grove
1430 Nye St.
San Rafael, CA 94901
[log in to unmask]
 
May the CDF&G wake up with a mountain lion in their shorts.
[Posted in FML issue 0972]