I have been reading the posts about yet another breeder horror over the
past few days.  I should just stay out of it, but I have to say it really
irks me with all this anonymous stuff.  It is how breeders time and again
get away with what they are doing.  Oust them to the ferret community,
the public, the news media if you have to.  The humane societies are
governed by laws that are not nearly as stringent as they should be and
often times the perpetrator gets by with no more than a slap on the
wrist, enabling them to continue.  Keeping them anonymous enables them to
continue.  How is the ferret owning public to know not to buy from these
people?  Or know when they are unwittingly being dumped on so that these
breeders can continue to breed?  By clandestine emails back and forth?
I should think the Hagerstown rescue should have been a lesson.  That
breeder could have been stopped years prior, but no.  Let's keep it
under wraps and handle it in the ferret community.  This kind of thing
should not be tolerated from the very beginning.  I get tired of hearing
the crap that they can be straightened out, they can be turned around.
Experience says they can't.  Gossip does go around the ferret community
and yes it can hurt people, but you know what?  If you are legit and
have nothing to hide it can be proven otherwise and not hurt you.
 
People like this where the people who have been there KNOW they should
not be doing this need to make it public.  The truth will never come
around to bite you in the butt.  By placing their excess ferrets and
keeping them anonymous you are just giving them room and license to
continue.  If people know who they are and discontinue getting ferrets
from them they will no longer have a reason to continue.  Being anonymous
just gives them a cloak to continue under.
[Posted in FML issue 5339]