Good news.
I talked with Joe Boteilho and Pat Sproule of Clark County Animal Control
in Las Vegas regarding the ad in the Las Vegas paper.
 
It turns out that, according to them, the ad in the Las Vegas paper greatly
misconstrues the agenda of the upcoming meeting, that the ad was not posted
by authority of their office (so just a random ad placed by someone), and
that the office has no idea why anyone mentioned ferrets in the ad.
 
The agenda of the meeting is to discuss a dangerous animal ordinance which
addresses, after the fact, individual animals (not species as a whole) who
have, through individual incidents, caused substantial harm to individuals,
perhaps even more than once.  One solution might be to require closer or
more responsible keeping or confinement of such individual animals (I don't
know whether it goes further).
 
Joe welcomed people to attend.  I hope one of us goes, if nothing else,
to verify the purpose of the meeting.
 
Joe says that his office does not believe in deeming species to be more
or less fit for specific uses (such as pets); rather, they are dealing
with individual animals and/or their owners that are causing a problem,
and are returning lost animals to their owners.  Their office seems
ferret-friendly, and (casually) mentions they get the odd ferrets (and
ferret cases?) in, but they don't have any big problems with ferrets.
 
Their office keeps records on the circumstances of bite reports,
believing this to be relevant to their task [yay!], such as whether
the animal was a guard dog defending the property from a trespasser,
or whether the animal was clearly provoked.
 
Finally, there is apparently a Nevada Administrative Code state law on
Communicable Diseases, chapter 441A, which says something about vaccinations,
ordinances for rabies control, and licensing.  This law talks specifically
about dogs, cats, and *ferrets*.  Apparently the Nevada State Law is to
vaccinate all of these animals for rabies (Joe knew IMRAB-3 was available for
ferrets).  At some point his office may be discussing (and perhaps holding
public meetings examining) rabies vaccination enforcement and tracking by
requiring a license obtained after rabies vaccinations, but this would be for
dogs and cats as well, and is apparently not intended by their office as a
method to restrict pet ownership beyond vaccination concerns, since this is
not their mission.  To me there's an issue to examine of whether too much
government here, and also whether ferrets are at high risk for rabies being
indoor pets, but I didn't go off on those since that was not what I called
about.
 
The number is (702) 455-7710, and Joe said to call if you have questions
(but try not to bother him lightly; he is not the enemy, apparently -- at
least, his office is not peopled by ferret-haters singling ferrets out for
attack).
 
Todd Cromwell
Dors (novia) and Seldon (cazador de suen~o)
[Posted in FML issue 1219]