Comments relevant to ferrets first:

We all know what will happen if you bore ferrets silly trying to get
them to use a treadmill.

We also all know that most domestic ferrets, given the chance, are
very active with their own chosen types of exercise which have extreme
bursts of exercise and then rest. So, despite having a somewhat gracile
build compared to a number of mammals, the domestic ferrets do not
exercise like distance runners do, but behave more like they have
less red muscle and more a mix with a very decent bit of white muscle
in there. (For red muscle think of long term exercise like marathon
running or how ducks fly distances. For white muscle think of
sprinters, weight lifters, and those great at other plyometric things
like jumping, as well as how turkeys and chickens use their pecs for
rapid bursts to lift them to a fence top or limb but not for distance
flying. Red muscle gets more blood flow, and with mammals there is
usually a mix. I do not know if BFFs have more red muscle and will
have to ask Travis sometime.)

While this way of testing and defining the hypothesis may well be a
decent one for red muscle athletes it also puts white muscle ones into
the unathletic camp. Opps! Using an animal whose normal chosen activity
is not mostly red muscle activity does not make sense physiologically,
and trying to force the animal to participate by doing things it would
dislike does not make sense behaviorally.

The worry for the sakes of ferrets with public perception of this study
is twofold:
1. As Jeff pointed out, people who think that ferrets dislike exercise
might consider it normal when ferrets are inactive. As a result they
could miss dangerous medical problems which should be treated rapidly
such as insulinoma, cardiomyopathy, anemia or ulcers, lymphoma, or
diabetes, as well as others.
2. People who don't know ferrets may assume that ferrets can be left in
a cage all day or most of the time with only a few hours of exercise,
but sarcopenia (poor muscle mass) is linked in a large number of
mammals with a range of serious medical problems and vulnerabilities,
and lack of metal stimulation is another abuse and can lead to
depression and strange mental aberrations and behaviors.

It really bothers me when people who have not studied animals assume
that any animal can be just stuck into any slot, and when they overlook
what is normal for the animals in behavior, interactions, or that
species' health, behavior, and biology. That never bodes well and often
leads to misinformation. Two other examples are :
1. Some of the early SARS work where the researchers declared that
ferrets could spread SARS casually (though they were surprised to
notice that the disease was intestinal rather than pulmonary), and they
did NOT know about the very common and widely spread ferret intestinal
coronavirus we all know as ECE, nor did they test for specific
coronavirii but instead they were doing only general coronavirus tests.
2. Some of the early chimp language studies that declared that chimps
can't do language, but for which the researchers failed to learn about
chimp behavior, chimp need for a strong hierarchy to feel secure, and
failed to learn how to establish that hierarchy. Sadly, there are far
too many examples out there of work gone awry because the researchers
dod not do their homework about the animals used in the study. Luckily,
they seem to be fewer in at least some fields of study than had existed
in the past. This time people really appear to have badly goofed.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22442371

>1. J Exp Biol. 2012 Apr 15;215(Pt 8):1331-1336.
> 
>Wired to run: exercise-induced endocannabinoid signaling in humans and
>cursorial mammals with implications for the 'runner's high'
>
>Raichlen DA, Foster AD, Gerdeman GL, Seillier A, Giuffrida A.
>
>School of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
>
>Humans report a wide range of neurobiological rewards following
>moderate and intense aerobic activity, popularly referred to as the
>'runner's high', which may function to encourage habitual aerobic
>exercise. Endocannabinoids (eCBs) are endogenous neurotransmitters
>that appear to play a major role in generating these rewards by
>activating cannabinoid receptors in brain reward regions during and
>after exercise. Other species also regularly engage in endurance
>exercise (cursorial mammals), and as humans share many morphological
>traits with these taxa, it is possible that exercise-induced eCB
>signaling motivates habitual high-intensity locomotor behaviors in
>cursorial mammals. If true, then neurobiological rewards may explain
>variation in habitual locomotor activity and performance across
>mammals. We measured circulating eCBs in humans, dogs (a cursorial
>mammal) and ferrets (a non-cursorial mammal) before and after
>treadmill exercise to test the hypothesis that neurobiological rewards
>are linked to high-intensity exercise in cursorial mammals. We show
>that humans and dogs share significantly increased exercise-induced
>eCB signaling following high-intensity endurance running. eCB
>signaling does not significantly increase following low-intensity
>walking in these taxa, and eCB signaling does not significantly
>increase in the non-cursorial ferrets following exercise at any
>intensity. This study provides the first evidence that inter-specific
>variation in neurotransmitter signaling may explain differences in
>locomotor behavior among mammals. Thus, a neurobiological reward for
>endurance exercise may explain why humans and other cursorial mammals
>habitually engage in aerobic exercise despite the higher associated
>energy costs and injury risks, and why non-cursorial mammals avoid
>such locomotor behaviors.
>
>PMID: 22442371 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

For those who wish to contact the journal (and comments from
veterinarians, physiologists, behavioral biologists, and exercise
experts may be especially useful on this regard):

http://jeb.biologists.org/site/contact/contact_jeb.xhtml

Sukie (not a vet)

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.miamiferret.org/
http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
all ferret topics:
http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html

"All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow."
(2010, Steve Crandall)
On change for its own sake: "You can go really fast if you just jump
off the cliff." (2010, Steve Crandall)

Addendum:

Now that I am past my spate of strong annoyance and re-read the
abstract I notice that it reads better than the blog and press takes
on the write-up for two reasons:
1. because the abstract at least referr to domestic ferrets as
"non-cursorial" and
2. because the abstract points out that the hypothesis is to see if the
endocannabinoid levels change in animals made for that type of exercise
but fail to change in those not made for that form of exercise.

So, I exercised some partly misplaced annoyance and my strong apologies
on that regard, but multiple websites are expressing the same
inaccuracy about ferrets, so either they are working from each other
or there is something in the article itself or perhaps in a university
press release about the article which is leading to that same
potentially dangerous inaccuracy being repeatedly used.

I'd like to have seen a study that also looked at those humans and
animals with more of a mix of red and white muscles types, and those
who have high levels of white muscle engaging in exercises more attuned
to their physiologies who then were tested. Doing exercises geared to
one's body type is rewarding, but it may be that the biochemical
rewards differ or can be triggered in multiple ways, and it could have
steered some away from concluding that the only route to being active
is the red muscle one.

Yes, I realize that the idea that others might use what was written to
spread potentially hazardous misinformation about ferrets was probably
far from anyone's mind. Still, it has happened and the risks to ferrets
include missing some serious diseases in ferrets which often first
present with inactivity (insulinoma, cardiomyopathy, autoimmune
hemolytic anemia, etc), and to animal abuse with ferrets being treated
by the ignorant as if they should be cage-bound.

[Posted in FML 7375]