Hey Now,
A belated congrats on issue 1000, mr. lewis dude. Me and my
weasel, under deep cover in the Berkeley FFZ appreciate the fellowship of
other right-minded individuals (And the humans they live with).
Cut to the chase. There are self sustaining populations of mustela furo
in this great big world of ours. New Zealenders introducted the little
bastards along with weasels and stoats to their island oasis in 1882 as
an attempt to control the rabbits which they had introduced earlier. It
was sheer "night of the lupus", though, until the 1950's when the
technology of poisoning allowed effective rabbit reduction, a reduction
which, in turn, reduced the ferret population. Nontheless, they are out
there, dooking softly in the dark, eyes gleaming as peter cottontail hops
on down that bunny trail. A Dr. Clapperton (sp?) publishes quite a bit on
these wild weasels, and other information is available by indexing
"fitch" which is the name for the pelt of the fitch ferret (i.e. a sable).
One aside...the scandinavians now have several all or mostly ferret fur
farms. Tell that to your fuzzies when they eat your sofa.
There are also documented sustaining populations one the island of
sardinia and there is some evidence of wild populations in scotland, but
they could just be escaped pets. While there is no hard evidence of
breeding colonies on the lam here in the americas, the california
department of morons, headed by the maggot who wrote that "the pet european
ferret is a threat to livestock, wildlife, and public health" claims that
they have recorded enough sightings to postulate the existence of feral
populations here. Hey bud, if sightings were science, they'd have a
trained Nessie at sea world.
So, anyhow, there are a few wild communities. It's like the situation
with domestic dogs gone au naturel, though. As far as i know, these wild
woozles are all descendent from domestic stock, which, in turn, is very
close genetically to the european polecat but with a skull shape closer
to that of the siberian steppe polecat (eversman's polecat).
Okay, 'nuff said on that.
Previously i posted that i'd read stuff by some guys who did a breakdown
of courtship behaviour in the black-footed and the domestic ferret. They
found that the behaviours of the two species were so close as to be
practically identical, and suggested that domestic ferrets could be used
as surrogates for black-footed ferrets in some research. How's that for a
research paper basis?
Finally, about my own malicious mustelid. She likes to dig open small
openings...like the gap underneath the door. Stuffing newspaper into the
gap seems to discourage her a little but the basic behaviour pattern
remains. And then she found the rolled up foam mattress cover that we use
to make the floor more comfortable for guests. Imagine, if you will,
taking a weed wacker to a bananna cream pie. The little long rat had an
estatic grin for days. @#*[log in to unmask]
Also, about the wild ones, the little beasties who, for whatever reason,
resist domestication. One lab animal handbook suggests doping them with
diazapram (sp.? anyhow, it's identical to valium) and then cuddling them.
Eventually they seem to get a contact high from humans (They link getting
stoned to being handled) Ha! Pavlov's potheads!
tot ziens,
Mac and bucky
[Posted in FML issue 1002]
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