Just opened today's snail mail and it included a letter from Diane Rogers.
 
On January 26th she spoke with Elizabeth Funk, Alaska Dept.  of Health,
907-269-8000, regarding that state's compliance with the 1998 Compendium.
Funk said she was too busy to send a letter but that Alaska will follow the
Compendium.  Here's the first kicker: there will NOT be written policy or
regulatory change.  It seems that Alaska already has a case-by-case basis
and once called the state health department will recommend the 10 day
quarantine of the Compendium.  Here's the second kicker: the local health
departments are autonomous (though she said that they almost always follow
the state policies).  Here's the third kicker (quoting Diane), "I asked if
the local municipalities had been given copies of the Compendium, and she
said that she does not know if this has been done.  This is not the
responsibility of her component, and she was not aware which department in
Alaska would be responsible for informing the municipalities."
 
She did tell Diane that in any cases of human punctures her department has
to be notified -- of course, if a local department doesn't have the
Compendium in hand this might happen after the ferret is already dead.
 
It looks like you folks in Alaska need to seriously get together to pursue
legislation, and that you FIRST need to obtain copies of the Compendium
(1-888-FERRET1, AVMA website, STARFerret, etc) and get those to all you
local health and animal control departments ASAP!  (See the note about
sources of info on successful legislation in one of the other state posts I
send today.)
 
She also followed up on the Minnesota legislative initiative
(#6216-0100-0600) and was informed by Jay Randall, MN Dept. of Natural
Resources, that the initiative would NOT prohibit the ownership of ferrets
but would prohibit their release into a "free-living state".  It seems he
does not know that they can't survive in those conditions.  As it stands, if
the gent is being accurate, it could help reduce one type of abuse against
ferrets, but Diane urges STRONGLY that people in MN track this legislation
to make sure that no anti-ferret garbage (my word) gets tacked on the final
version.
 
Hope these help someone.
 
Oh, and Ronnie reminded me that the folks who I need to thank (besides Dee
and Jeanne) are Dave and Deb Les.  Forgetting their names is kind of like
forgetting Mt.  Rushmore, isn't it?  Guess I have just met too many folks
recently for my meager brain capacity.
 
Sukie
[Posted in FML issue 2202]