I think there may be some truth to this.  I recall reading an article a
few weeks ago in the paper that was talking about research being done in
Canada on a bird flu vaccine.  It did state that there was a shortage of
ferrets available to use for testing.  I'm not a big fan of animal
research and at the time I recall thinking to myself that they'd better
not come knocking on our shelter door as we sure wouldn't be volunteering
any of our shelter ferrets for that!  I do believe though that the
article did mention something about looking overseas for research
ferrets.
 
Barb Hoult
Alberta Ferret Society
[Posted in FML issue 5171]