I am very unhappy to hear that the three ferrets have been killed for no
other crime than being playful.  I now live in New Jersey and am currently
unknowledgable of the ferret-related laws of this state.  I just moved here
from Massachusetts and I owned (and still have) two cute little ferrets
(Cinnamon and Snowflake) for a whole year that they were illegal in the
state...and thankfully saw the law (one of Massachusetts' many "foolish"
laws) against owning a ferret repealed!
 
Might someone who knows of the laws relating to ferrets please post (or
alternatively send me directly via e-mail) this information?  When I hear
that ferrets have fewer rights than dogs in this state, I start to get the
same feeling that I had in Massachusetts: that the state government is
oppressing certain animals for no logical reason.  When three ferrets with
no visible signs or symptoms of rabies are killed (without quarantine and
with two of the animals current on their rabies shots!) my ears perk
up...ESPECIALLY when various officials (including a judge in a court of law
consulting an expert!) denied the plaintiff the right to have the animals
destroyed for testing before he had them killed!
 
All feelings of anger aside (which are, by the way, present nevertheless) I
have been wondering what possessed (motivated?) that heartless, cruel,
inhumane man to have the animals destroyed, AND I also wonder how he
obtained the animals from the shelter (to give to the vet which destroyed
them) in the first place!  Did he steal them?  Did he have a court order to
bring them to a vet to be tested?  Did the shelter owner give him the three
ferrets out of fear of being sued?
 
Had I owned those babies and knew they were going to be killed needlessly
(without quarantine [if they really did have visible signs and symptoms of
having rabies, I would want to have them put to sleep to spare them further
pain]) I would have given them to an underground rescue shelter to try and
save them if they were clean of the disease.
 
A less-then-depressing ending to this story would be if an animal rights
agency or vigilante secret animal shelter were to break into his house and
forcibly take his ferret away from him.  Would definitely make a great
video...no?
 
Thanks for reading, hope some people respond to my questions, and thanks for
putting up with my overzealous parentheses-isis and run-on sentences.  :)
 
Love for the ferrets, from my hotel room in Massachusetts,
 
Sean M. Goodman
 
#>  Sean M. Goodman                             Phone# (413) 298-8105   #<
<#  Assistant Systems Administrator             Fax# (413) 298-0160     >#
#>  Mass Illusion, Cinergi                      [log in to unmask]     #<
<#   "When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl."   >#
#>                                                   -Brad Templeton    #<
[Posted in FML issue 1599]