>From:    Melanie Prarat <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Response to E. Lipinski Comment
>
>>Ferrets will kill just for the love of it. To them it is a most
>>wonderful enterprise." (E. Lipinski)   
>
>I do not know of any small mammalian species that kill "just for the
>love of it"....
>
>Ferrets do not kill for the love of it. Ferrets kill to survive. That
>is all.

Dear Melanie,

Let me inform you so that you'll know that ferrets will kill for the
fun of it. Most likely you and other ferret lovers do not want to
consider this characteristic as even remotely possible.

It is possible and it does happen. I experienced it twice.

I have been amazed and sorely disappointed as a witness to brutal
murder by a young ferret of two of my birds. The ferret was highly
excited and just lit up with enthusiasm, bouncing around and jumping
to and fro, tossing the dead birds it had just killed after it managed
to squeeze through the bars of the bird's cage.

The second instance of ferret normal behavior, as surprising as it was
to me, was the killing of a female ferret cage mate. She was caged with
a large intact male ferret. When discovered he had killed her and had
eaten part of her body. And over the following two days he entirely
consumed her body, bones included, leaving only a bit of fur.

I do not attribute any human-like ideology to these happenings. This
is, I believe this normal behavior and is not judged by me one way or
the other.

It's the way it is, whether we like it or not Excuse me if I have
caused you mental anguish, but the world is not all love and
contentment when you get down to mother nature's level.

Edward Lipinski

[Posted in FML 6223]