Michael Curry:
 
Is anyone in your area spraying / using pesticides / herbicides / aerial or
ground dispersed fertilizers / hormones or other chemicals???
 
Is the government / military doing any exercises or have any property nearby
where they might be testing gases / powders / sprays?  Is there a legal or
illegal dump site nearby?  Anything "upstream" or able to infiltrate your
groundwater system?  I hate to add this, but ... is there anything nuclear
... a plant, a dumpsite, that the government may not be telling you the
truth about?  Is there an incineration site which burns trash and waste?  Is
there a manufacturing plant which may have undesireable waste products it
puts into the air / water / soil?
 
One thing you can check which would tell you if it's environmental.  Are
other animals -- birds (chickens, pets like canaries), small rodents (pet
mice or gerbils, hamsters) etc. --- having similar problems?  Are there
still field mice and resident songbirds (not migratory birds, year-round
residents)?  This would be a big clue that there is something contaminating
the area.
 
These are the things that come to my mind when you speak of so many ferrets
dying all at once.  Any genetic or infectious disease (unless *incredibly*
virulent) would cause deaths over many hours or days.  This sounds much more
like some environmental cause, either in the air (fastest dispersal) water,
soil or contaminating people's clothes, the food, the buildings.
 
If you think this can't happen, go to your library and check out the book
"Minamata" -- a heart-rending picture book about what a manufacturing plant
did in Minamata Bay, Japan, and how the government failed to respond,
leaving the fisherpeople of Minamata with twisted, helpless, deformed,
retarded children.  We have yet to count the full costs of Chernobyl, Three
Mile Island, Love Canal, or the Exxon Valdez.
 
The ferrets could be like the canaries miners used to take into deep mines
to warn them when the air was going bad or when pockets of deadly but
unscented gases began to leak into the mine.  The canaries would stop
singing and die.  Any time this many animals are this sick this quickly, I
would investigate the environment before people began to sicken also.
 
Good luck, let us know if you find any answers.
 
JodyLee Estrada Duek                            520/626-2203
Faculty Development Specialist                  520/626-6707 (message)
Division of Academic Resources                  520/626-4879  (fax)
University of Arizona College of Medicine
1501 N. Campbell Avenue
Tucson, Arizona  85724
 
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[Posted in FML issue 1674]