Taken from todays (071399) Seattle newspaper, the Seattle Post
Intelligencer:
 
Quote.
 
Although many animals talk to one another with sizable vocabularies of
sound and signal, some, the loners, don't.
 
Weasels, minks, badgers, martens, fishers, ferrets (sic) and wolverines
don't .   They only get together briefly  during mating season, and
they're not much given to conversation then.
 
Wildlifers say their languages are primitive.
 
Unquote.
 
Thus, if the ferret's language is primitive, is the ferret itself
primitive?  Does a primitive animal characteristically attack the young of
other species?  Could this include human young, such as infants?  If the
ferret is primitive and attacks the young of other species, is it at this
time of its development, really domesticated?  Yet?
 
Does this imply that dogs who will travel in packs and who are not
considered "primitive" like the ferret, and who also bite infants, do
bite infants for reasons different from the reasons that motivate ferrets
to bite infants?
 
Do we naturally assume that the action of a ferret inflicting bites on a
human infant is a really bad thing?  Obviously we do.  Is there the remote
possibility that what we perceive as a "bite" is in reality, something
else... something else that we don't yet understand?
 
To the astute ferret behavior observer, do you see some types of ferret
behavior that indicate the biting behavior of a ferret is actually a
beneficial act directed toward the human infant.  Some times we may be
blind to what's really going on right in front of our eyes.
 
I espouse a theory that the "bite" of a ferret on a human infant is not
necessarily a bad thing, but is in reality an act of beneficance by the
ferret directed at a creature that it is trying to protect or even covet.
Do you not observe in ferrets their covetness in the "secret" caches they
go to extreme efforts to maintain?  What hint do you get here?
 
Edward Lipinski,
Ferret Endowment for Research, Rehabilitation, Education & Training
Society, North West.
 
Think about it.
 
Edward Lipinski
[Posted in FML issue 2742]