Fred, that is the island to which I referred where there were European
rabbits that lived in colonies and what were released weren't pert stock
ferrets.  The ferrets survived for a while but not quite as long as the
rabbits form what i have read.  This is covered in the archives.  To ease
a search, if memory serves you'll find that Bob Church and Troy Lynn
Eckart are the ones who followed up on this directly (others?) with the
wildlife experts for that location.  It's old news and the mustelids are
gone.  The conditions were very specialized (unlike California in general
which was the topic of discussion) and they even had the types of rabbits
which form colonies (unlike native ones) from Europe, but even then their
survival ended under conditions that minimized predators, minimized
competition, provided non-native prey, etc.  If anything it showed that
even when conditions are changed to try to be like Europe we just aren't
enough like Europe here for successful feral colonies.  It's kind of like
reading about the disappearance of colonists from Jamestown ;-) -- short
foothold then disappearance in a specialized case.  The difference is the
European humans thrived here elsewhere (and there later) but ferrets have
done just the opposite.
 
New Zealand's biologists do refer both to polecats and to released fur
fitch and it is NOT known if the wild descendants there are a mix or
polecats, or what the last i heard.  These critters do form a risk to
some of their ground dwelling birds, but the materials by the
investigating scientists show that by farf the greatest risk if from
imported rats, and domestic cats and dogs pose more of a risk than the
polecats/fur fitch do.  It is pretty hard to do anything in legislation
that will tackle wild rats, though, and heaven forbid anyone do anything
about pet dogs and cats so a smaller population was tackled.  Depending
on who is listened to that is either to have the appearance of doing
something or actually doing something even if it only for a small
fraction of the problem.
 
Thank you for bringing up something new into the discussion rather than
the going-around-in-circles stuff that I am now ignoring.  After all, the
data is there and the wide splay of variation is well known, so if those
are ignored as if those assorted folks reporting them would be untruthful
then what is the use?
 
Hey, a question: One of Sevie's meds is in cod liver oil and agrees well
with her that way.  Anyone have tips of removing this oil from cloth?
The scent is really hard to cut.
[Posted in FML issue 4028]