Hey Rick and Shirley!

First, sorry about the length of this post, but I am responding to two
separate people. I want to thank both of you for this opportunity to
actually discuss issues for a change. I truly, honestly loved both
your responses. You read what I had to say, disagreed or were confused
with part of it and then wrote a wonderful, well thought out response
(although with Rick I am not all that sure because he loves to poke me
with a stick from time to time. When he does it too much I poke fun at
Republicans). These are two of my favorite ferret people and I adore
both of them for what they do for ferrets. Thank you both for
responding.

Rick modestly stated,
>My apologies for this lengthy post. I did include ample samplings of
>AR blathering in hopes of pleasing that faction, so that this post
>might be acceptable for the FML.

AR? What does Arkansas have to do with it? Is that a Clinton-era
joke? ;-) Rick, my best buddy Kim always tells me that I should always
write to a 15-year-old level, but I always say it is condescending to
assume FML readers are uneducated and her Chicago experiences have left
her tainted (sorry my Chicago friends, but I couldn't resist the joke).
Kim never misses an opportunity to tell me my posts are long, boring,
and information dense, to which I reply that I would have assumed such
opinions from a short, cute blond with a fetish for leather. Anyway,
your blatherings are ALWAYS pleasing to read, and if anyone complains,
just show them one of my posts.

Rick obstinately wrote:
>Can I safely determine that the behavior of these "abnormal" ferrets
>is a result of captivity?

I wouldn't suggest they were abnormal; just adapted. Just like me: I'm
adapted, not abnormal. But, yes, quite a lot of the ferret behaviors
you see are influenced by human owners, thus a result of captivity.

Then Rick verbosely remarked,
>"Where does a bear poop in the woods? Anywhere it wants to." What is
>so natural about a ferret being expected to poop in a litter-pan?

I always thought bears poop at trees with Charmin hung on the branches.
But, since I have not consumed a six-pack of XX, I'll continue to the
ferret poop and leave this existential muse behind for you to wipe up.
You are correct, it is not a natural behavior. It is an adapted one.
Polecats create large latrines which are used to mark territory, signal
sexual state, and other mustelid crap. A litter box keys into that
instinctive behavior quite well, but not totally. Ferrets are obstinate
in deciding where they want to go, and usually do do where they want.
Luckily, many adapt that behavior to our litter pans. Using territorial
latrines is the natural behavior, using litter pans is the captive
behavior, and pooping under my foot just as I take a step is a
dastardly learned behavior.

Then Rick remarked in an ornery Texan fashion,
>This revelation now fully explains how ferrets, being domesticated
>polecats, can like dogs and cats, return to their natural state in the
>wild, become feral, decimate the natural flora and fauna, propagate
>just as feral domestic dogs and cats commonly do and also become
>vectors of rabies and toxoplasmosis.

Rick, I told you not to drink beer and read CaCa Fishing Gestapo
literature at the same time! Come back from the dark side!

Sadly, ALL domesticated animals (as a general population, not
individuals) can become feral. However, in terms of relative risk,
ferrets are among the group of animals that has an extremely hard time
doing so. In 300+ years, not a single population of ferrets has become
feral in the USA, or to my knowledge, in the western hemisphere. THAT
makes them very low risk. The only place they have any real success in
becoming feral has been New Zealand, which is a post all its own, and
a few places in Europe where hybridization to polecats confuses the
issue.

Then Rick mused,
>I find it most interesting that these captive wild beasts "still enjoy
>the company of humans." Could it be that this plastic facade is indeed
>a devious ploy to gain access to the tender flesh and fresh blood of
>their captors infants?

I don't know about infants, but a favorite theory of mine is that they
are after human toes. There, I toed you!

Then Rick majestically quipped,
>Are "behavioral traits" genetically imprinted, parentally imprinted,
>environmentally acquired, socially acquired or a combination of all of
>these factors?

Yes to all and no to all. This is the old "nuture versus nature"
argument, very old and never well resolved because it is as much
philosophical as physiological. Personally, I blame it all on the
Victorians. I recently reread Darwin's tome on domestication, as well
as several early natural history books, and they were remarkable in
that they uniformly discussed the ferret's "inability" to form close
friendships with humans as a sign that they were not fully
domesticated. These are beautiful examples of how cultural values
taint scientific reasoning. Don't get me started on Freud.

Animal behavior studies are generally either ethology-based or
psychology-based (for want of a better set of terms that 15-year-olds
and Kim can understand). Ethologists tend to be more like human
anthropologists (aka ethnologists, spelled with the 'n', the
pretentious humanist bastards). I once listened to two behaviorists,
one from each camp, yell at each other for an hour. They weren't saying
the other was wrong; they were saying the WAY the other figured it out
was wrong!

Although it is somewhat simplistic, I feel there are two basic types of
behaviors, innate (genetic) and learned (environmental). Innate
behaviors are stereotypic of the species; all members do them without
learning, they all occur during a specific developmental stage (like a
baby's smile), and they are done regardless of the state of captivity.
Some people call these instinctual behaviors, and in ferrets they
include (but not limited to) making latrines, anal marking behaviors,
vocalizations, digging, neck biting, the war dance, the open play
mouth, and a couple dozen others. Ferrets can be conditioned so they do
not perform some of their innate behaviors, but I feel it causes
unnecessary and dangerous stress and might lead to neurotic animals.

Other behaviors also might have a genetic basis, but are also
environmentally influenced, such as hunting or killing behaviors. Some
ferret behaviors are culturally learned (such as picking specific prey
animals) so the process of removing a ferret from its mother at weaning
could cause a net loss of normal behaviors. Because learned behaviors
are so greatly influenced by the environment, they are usually quite
plastic and easily modified to fit a particular situation. Still,
there is a species-specific continuity so that while it is not quite
stereotypic, it is still recognizable as something ferrets do. It is
important to note that the environmental influence on some of these
behaviors is dramatic, while in others it is minimal. The crepuscular
lifeway is in this suite of behaviors, so even though there is a
genetic basis for the behavior (as evidenced in anatomical,
physiological, and behavioral traits), it is plastic enough to be
adaptable to specific situations, such as human captivity or garbage
dumping.

Rick, I could discuss this for hours. Wait! We have! Trying to decide
what is a normal behavior in ferrets is almost impossible unless you
look at wild populations of polecats and feral ferrets. While it sounds
strange to say, in a way we are extremely fortunate that there exists
a large feral population of ferrets in New Zealand because it affords
us the opportunity to compare a feral domesticated animal population
to wild non-domesticated progenitor populations. It is a window for
understanding how domestication has impacted our little beasties:
polecats are the baseline natural behaviors, feral ferrets are the
baseline domestication changes, and pet ferrets show the influence of
humans and captivity on behavior. Triple play!

Then Rick intelligently asked,
>Have not all domesticated species been subjected to, and altered by
>these factors of captivity? Is there a continuance of the evolutionary
>process in both the physical and mental being of a captive species?"

Ready to get confused? Domestication changes nothing, and yet it
also changes everything. Let's just discuss behavior for a moment.
Domestication does not change the behavior of ferrets, and yet those
behaviors are significantly changed. How can this be? It is because
it is not the creation or deletion of behaviors that is taking place,
but rather the FREQUENCY of the expression of those behaviors.

I am going to make up some data for the ease of discussion. Assume you
studied a polecat population and noted 80% showed curiosity, 70% showed
fear, 60% bit humans, 50% used a latrine, 40% play fought, 30% showed
fearlessness, and 20% showed a desire to gnaw on human toes. Suppose
the same researchers, using the same criteria, studied pet ferrets and
found 95% showed curiosity, 25% showed fear, 10% bit humans, 70% used a
latrine, 85% play fought, 90% showed fearlessness, and 90% showed a
desire to gnaw on human toes. Has any behavior been invented? NO! Has
any behavior been deleted? NO! Are the behaviors different in the
domesticated population compared to the wild? NO! What has changed is
the FREQUENCY of expression of behaviors. See? Nothing has changed, and
yet everything has changed! Now is the hard part. Why?

Ultimately, the changes are due to multiple unknown genetic factors.
Russian research, since duplicated in other species, shows you can
breed an animal for fearlessness towards humans and the same
domestication changes you see in ferrets will occur in just about any
mammalian species. This has been termed, "breeding for the star gene,"
but it is recognized that the process involves many genes and other
factors. Interestingly, you can likewise breed for aggressiveness,
creating uber-mean animals: fearless, aggressive, and violently
vicious. But, breeding for either condition is not creating or deleting
new behaviors. It is simply changing the frequency of expression of
existing behaviors. All the behaviors seen in a wild population remains
in the population of domestic animals; it is just the frequency of
expression of those behaviors that has changed.

This, of course, begs another question, "Do domestic animals continue
to evolve during domestication?" Of course they do, although modern
biologists have yet to come to grips with the concept. The greater
question is, does evolution change behaviors? We are lucky that the
mustelid linage is so rich and so old. If you compare the behaviors of,
say, all polecats (European, steppe, and black-footed ferret), how many
differences are there? Add in the other members of Mustela, and what
differences are there? Add in the rest of the mustelids, and how many
differences can you find? If you do that, and I have these wonderful
excel charts where I have, you realize the basic behaviors of mustelids
are highly conserved, meaning you have to go a long way from the
evolutionary oak tree to find a strange acorn. So, if they are highly
conserved through millions of years of evolution, how much change can
occur in a few hundred years?

Things like innate behavior, digestive physiology, and nutritional
needs are so highly conserved in a species that it is unlikely that
domestication can change them without negatively impacting other
genetic attributes. Ferrets are unique in that for the last 2500 years,
people have been breeding them back to the polecat population in order
to make them better hunters. This tends to normalize any genetic drift,
negating evolutionary change. Yes, I think a very careful breeding
program might cause changes in innate behavior, but it would be at
great risk to the animal, and it hasn't been done in ferrets.

Then Rick voiced,
>the multi stage process of going from Wild to Domesticated to Domestic
>did not occur last year or even in the last hundred years. Have you
>changed, either mentally and/or physically, in the last five years?

I've changed a lot, but my innate nature is the same, making me
the Same Ol' Bob (SOB). Dogs are fundamentally wolves, cats are
fundamentally wildcats, ferrets are fundamentally polecats, and
human are fundamentally no good.

Then Rick thoughtfully penned,
>I must reiterate, I am not an expert (on anything), and I fully expect
>to be admonished and/or severely castigated for my ignorance and
>impudence.

And you will be as soon as I find a knife! Oh wait. I misunderstood.
I thought you wrote, "castrated." Sorry, my bad.

Then Rick said in Texican,
>In prudence, I must question all information in the sense of how it
>will impact ferret ownership; both positive and negative.

Damn, Rick, when did you become Yoda? I only wish every ferret owner,
nay, all pet owners had that same attitude. Dude, you are my brother
AND my hero!

Finally, Rick said on his poopdeck,
>Please, Do not further confuse legislators with scientific fact! They
>do not have either the time or interest in fact. Legislators are only
>interested in pleasing the factions that contribute money and votes for
>their reelection.

Does that happen in America? Say it isn't so! Next, you'll be telling
me that Bonds used steroids, Rose bet on his own team, and the Easter
Bunny isn't real (and for the trivia pursuit crowd, "I still haven't
decided about Toledo." Points to those who can identify the quote).

Shirley quoted in her sweet Australian accent,
>Polecats were mainly nocturnal since animals were active 52.0% of the
>night compared to 11 1% of the day...

Here's the problem with the numbers. What portion of "night" was
sampled; did 1 hr past dusk count the same as 6 hrs past dusk? How
many of those polecats that were active at night (52%) were also active
at dawn and dusk? How many were also active during the day? Most
important, how well does the population represent polecats in general?
In a sample of nine animals, the risk is that a few "abnormals" can
significantly skew the results. I am NOT saying the paper is wrong; I'm
just saying there is a big difference between 9 animals in a regional
distribution compared to 1000 animals in a multi-continental
distribution.

Then Shirley candidly said,
>and then [you] seriously messed with my mind by saying "Part of the
>answer lies in understanding that the classification of animals into
>the "nocturnal - crepuscular - diurnal" activity categories is a
>totally arbitrary." For that, you will need to be punished. :-D

Promise?? Wear red when you do...

Yeah, well, I could have been a bit better at describing what I meant,
but I was trying to save posting space. What I meant was that many
scientists want to pigeon hole a species when their activity times
don't conform to a specific pattern of activity. For a couple of
centuries, animals were either nocturnal or diurnal. But, a LOT of
animals had an activity strategy where they exploited the dawn-dusk
times and the idea of crepuscular was invented. But where should it go?

Daytime and nighttime modalities will always have overlap, but that
is not crepuscular. Being crepuscular is an activity strategy that
exploits dawn-dusk light cycles. Because of their specific
modifications, they can actually be active during ANY period of the
day, and will shift their period of activity to suit local conditions
to better make a living. In a way, crepuscular animals are light
cycle generalists, compared to the nocturnal and diurnal light cycle
specialists (No Tron jokes, please). THAT is why I say the
classification of crepuscular animals as being part of a nocturnal
lifeway is an arbitrary decision.

Then Shirley intuitively said,
>...my ferrets...are never caged and have access to indoors and out,
>24/7. They have an insomniac, stay-at-home carer who is available
>to them at odd hours of the day and night with no regular hours of
>activity kept. In my opinion, this lets them set their own time
>schedule.

But do they have published timetables? Every dependable train has a
published timetable.

Mine live the same way. Still, if they hear my voice or I bang around,
or they smell my cologne, or they just get that creepy feeling at the
base of their neck, they bust their drawers to come over and try to
join the pile in my lap. My presence influences them. Even when I try
not to influence them, my observations influences them. You are going
to have to do a lot of convincing to make me change my mind that you
are not an influence on your ferret's schedule. Unless your ferrets
completely ignore you and everything you do, at all times, in all
situations, you are influencing them.

Also, you live in Australia, where the weather is a bit different
compared to, say, England or northern Europe. Your ferrets may simply
be displaying an adaptation to heat and dryness, and since humans
brought ferrets to the Great Down Under, those changed behaviors would
be a result of human action. New Zealand has two major islands, one
being more southern than the other. The distribution and activity
patterns of feral ferrets is more polecat-like in areas with a more
northern European climate. The densities of feral ferrets are also
much greater in that climate.

The bottom line is that while your observations are undoubtedly
correct, they still represent a state of captivity and cannot
represent, without empirical evidence to back the claim, a normal
behavior. There are just too many uncontrolled factors.

Then Shirley remarked sweetly,
>It seems to me that the activity timetable of polecats depends mainly
>on what type of prey they are hunting, and the weather, and I think
>they would be better described as nocturnal and sometimes
>opportunistically crepuscular eg frogs are active nocturnally, so
>when polecats prey on frogs, they are then nocturnal too.

That could be true except polecats -- and ferrets by extension -- are
generalist opportunist feeders. They eat the first things they find.
That is why they can't walk in a straight line and why they have to
sniff everything new. That is a very successful hunting technique. In
fact, as an archaeologist, I was trained in a mustelid hunting pattern
to better find archaeological objects during surveys. You don't walk in
a straight line, but rather wander in a zigzag pattern, investigating
all possible objects.

Also, much of the frog predation takes place during the cold months,
and polecats aren't actually hunting in the sense of a cat stalking
prey. They are searching likely areas, sniffing for them, and digging
them out of the mud. That can be done at any time of day. One other
point about the frog predation; while polecats probably hunted them for
thousands of years, some of the recent papers that suggested polecats
were frog specialists probably didn't take into account that the
polecats were probably prey switching because their primary prey was
locally wiped out by human activity. Polecats in nature preserves eat
far fewer frogs and toads.

Nonetheless, I think you are at least 70-80% correct in that polecats
shift their activity patterns for certain types of prey. But being able
to switch from day to night to dusk to night to day is a characteristic
of a crepuscular species, not a nocturnal or diurnal one.

The Shirley finally said,
>Nevertheless, because the boundaries of the term "crepuscular" is
>deemed arbitrary" and a only a "sub-set", it would appear that in
>this case, one person's opinion is just as valid as another's and
>I still don't know for sure who is more correct.

Now Shirley, you should realize that *I* am correct! ;-)

It is easy to recognize a robin is a diurnal animal; it gets up at dawn
and goes to bed at dusk. Most bats do the opposite, and are easily seen
as nocturnal. You can tell it in the eyes with most mammals. Daytime
mammals usually see in color, nighttime animals see in shades of gray,
and crepuscular animals see a bit of both. I have had great arguments
in graduate zoology classes over this issue. I once made a professor
do that open mouth fish movement thing when I got him to admit that
crepuscular was a subset of nocturnal because of some night activity. I
asked if the animals were also active during the daytime, which he had
to admit was true. So then I asked why crepuscular wasn't also a subset
of diurnal. That classification is arbitrary, based on linear thinking,
and ignoring the evolutionary adaptation of animals to that specific
lifeway.

Again, thank you both for giving me the opportunity to pontificate at
great length.

Bob C [log in to unmask]

[Posted in FML 5548]