The simple question is:
 
    WHY?
 
In my previous post I wrote that
 
    "Nothing much has changed.  Isn't that right?"
 
Reading the responses to my post it's pretty damn clear that nothing has
changed at all.
 
Those who have attempted to find a reason for the ferret mauling the
infant in Toronto have cited that oft repeated cliche:
 
     It's not the ferrets fault; it's not the infant's fault either.  It's
     the fault of the adult.
 
Please note here that the word "reason" is somehow changed by the
respondents to the word "fault."
 
But let's be very clear on this - not one person on this mailing list has
even hinted at the REASON why a ferret inflicts biting wounds on an infant,
as in the Toronto case as well as all the others that history has recorded.
 
Why has not one person - not any one individual -  expressed the thought:
 
    Gee!      I really wonder why ferrets do bite infants?
 
As is so often done, the stats are given that other animals bite infants a
lot more than ferrets do.  So that being the case, is there comfort in that
comparison?  If the rates were 100,000 dog bites to just 1 ferret bite of
an infant, does that somehow make the ferret's action toward the infant
somehow less of a trauma to that one infant?
 
Of course it doesn't.  One bite is one bite too many, and especially at
least one bite every so often somewhere in the world.
 
I must ask the FML readership - why don't even one of you want to find out
why a ferret will bite an infant?  And why is the "bite" of a ferret not
just one single skin penetration of the ferret's teeth into the infant's
skin, but is a series of repeated bites, over and over again, more often
than not to the same general area of the infant's body?
 
Also I have to ask, why has not even one individual expressed the desire to
determine the physical condition of the attacking ferret?  What is there
about this Toronto ferret that is unique to him (her)?  Is there something
comparable in this ferret to all the other ferrets that have mauled infants
that may be discovered by a finely detailed examination of the Toronto
Terrifier before he is killed, or for that matter, even after he is killed.
 
Thus I return to my point made in the original post, unless questions such
as I have proposed above are asked and fully answered, there is no
knowledge to pass on to other ferret owners or the general public as to how
best protect infants from continued ferret attacks.  How can ferret owners
who are ignorant, and I'm afraid we are all ignorant in this field of
ferret behavior, educate the public?  Simple.  We can't.  We are as dumb as
doorknobs, wouldn't you agree?
 
Edward Lipinski, who's been there and done that!  Seventy-two inches of
intestine in the ferret that was necropsied here in my vet's lab.  And
you know what?  Not one bit of food in the stomach or intestine - only 20
millimeters of feces just inside the anus.  Does this suggest that this
ferret that inflicted 47 lacerations of a premature infant's scalp was
starving?  You tell me.
[Posted in FML issue 2740]