Q: "If ferrets are so domesticated, why do they stalk other animals....one
of my ferrets all but killed a very expensive bird...."
 
A: Did you take it away or did the ferret just give you the bird?
 
How often do you see comments about making cats or dogs illegal because of
their stalking of wild game.  Never?  But mention a ferret, and people point
out how bloodthirsty they are simply because they stalk, and on occasion
kill other animals.  This is frequently pointed to with the words
"semi-domesticated" attached, using the stalking as evidence of "incomplete
domestication." This is not only a misrepresentation of the facts, but is a
prime example of how little is understood about evolution, domestication,
and selection.  Basically, they don't know the difference between a wino and
a ferret's bum.
 
Behaviors come in three flavors; those completely genetic in nature, those
that are completely learned, and those that are a combination of the two.
Genetic behaviors (such as licking a baby clean, suckling, sex behaviors,
stalking, fear biting and escape) are not learned; they are behaviors
programed into the brain and are transmitted via DNA to the offspring.
Learned behaviors (such as food selection, predator avoidance, hunting
techniques, and environmental mapping) are learned as the ferret matures,
and are transmitted by the parent via ethographic mechanisms.  As scientists
are recently discovering, most behaviors are a combination of the two; they
have a genetic base which is environmentally modified, and include such
behaviors as vocalizations (ferret language), play behaviors, sexual
selection, and the like.  Thus, it is easy to see that the *behavior* of
stalking is a deeply ingrained genetic trait, but food selection is not.
 
This makes perfect evolutionary sense, because the desire to stalk must be
extremely important to carnivores in order to survive, but the food
selection should be plastic, so carnivores can modify their hunting to the
animals in a specific environment.  These statements apply to *ALL*
mammalian carnivores, domesticated or not, excluding those that specialize
in a single prey.  It is relatively easy to alter learned behaviors, more
difficult to modify learned/genetic behaviors, and almost impossible to
modify genetic behaviors.  In other words, you can teach a ferret to eat
carrots, you can sort of teach them to use a single litter box, but you
can't stop them from running after a mouse-sized object running across
their field of vision at a specific speed and angle.
 
But what about domestication?  Doesn't that modify the genetic behaviors of
an animal?  Yep, you pass the test, but the behaviors that are modified are
few to begin with, and usually only those which are necessary to perform
human-related tasks (things liked increased acceptance of novelty and
lowered fear of humans).  The ferret and the cat are prime examples of
carnivores that were bred to combat rodents eating human food stocks.  So
what you want is a predator which hunts and kills small animals, but likes
to be associated with human beings.  So you bred those ferrets (and cats)
that are fearless towards people, but still are good hunters.  The end
result is an animal that has good hunting instincts and little fear of
people.  The pet ferret and cat.
 
But cats are better at it than ferrets, so they generally took over the
ratting and mousing aspects from ferrets, who pretty much lost their job.
But they didn't go extinct because they were found to be fantastic at a
completely different job; running animals out of burrows.  So ferret
behavior was once again modified by human breeders to produce an animal with
good hunting instincts, fearless of people, and attracted to novelty.
Ferrets were bred for exactly those traits for almost their entire domestic
history, excluding the last 30 years where ferrets have been bred for the
pet trade and for laboratories.
 
There is another factor which must be considered.  In breeding behavioral
traits, many are found to be linked to other, unrelated traits.  For
example, in many species of carnivores, breeding animals to be no longer
nervous and accepting humans also produces animals with piebald coloration.
The best example of this was the fairly recent Russian experiment where
foxes were bred to be friendly towards humans, and resulted in a black and
white animal which physically looked quite similar to the dog, and
behaviorally was almost identical.  These fox even barked.  The attempt to
change a ferret's basic behavior is certain to have unexpected results, even
results detrimental to the ferret.
 
The obvious point here is even though ferrets will stalk other animals, they
are no different than the dog or the cat, and ferret owners should never
allow thier pets to be judged differently.  The other point is even though
ferrets will stalk, because they are olfactory (smell) predators, and not
visual like dogs or cats, their impact is potientially far less on the
environment than the others.  This is simply because a cat or dog will
actively hunt any animal their vision says might be food, tieing the visual
to the olfactory clues, but ferrets will only hunt those things it has
imprinted *AS* food, and the stalking is limited to only those animals
that--through poor luck perhaps--wander in front of it.  Will a ferret
stalk, even kill small animals?  Certainly.  But Warner Brothers made a
fortune off Sylvester trying to eat Tweety Bird, and everyone understood
that was a natural cat behavior.  Its ok for ferrets to be ferrets, and
we should understand ferrets and small animals do not mix.
 
Bob C and 20 MO Sufferin' Sofasharcths
[Posted in FML issue 2343]