You have to watch how you search for thing s on the internet. Search
engines will return all manner of links to things that MATCH your
search terms. Having multiple matches doesn't equate to a bolstering
of the search - it is more likely that the search term has just been
repeated in the same phrasing multiple times over multiple sites.

Use a bit more generic terms to broaden the scope and return a broader
range of sites. Instead of searching for "Ferrets as third most popular
pet" try searching for "pet popularity statistics" or "exotic pet
statistics". Most of the sites brought up with the first two search
phrases don't even mention ferrets. The pets they DO list are Dogs,
cats, fish and horses! Searching for "exotic pet statistics" turns
up this page:
http://exoticpets.about.com/cs/resourcesgeneral/a/petstates.htm
again, fish are more popular than ferrets.

Ferrets tend to get grouped with "small animals" too, which makes
actual statistics difficult. There really aren't places that count
the actual pets in a household by species. Shelters can offer numbers
on animals brought to them or picked up, but is this really a good
representation of pet popularity? Not in my mind! "Popular" pets don't
get sent to the pound!

A visit to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferret oddly enough
offers a link from California, of all places ( considering ferrets are
BANNED from California) --- but somehow they get to "guesstimate" the
quantities of ferrets in U.S. Households 16 years ago, to be somewhere
around 800,000! The link in their quote didn't work for me." In the
United States, ferrets were relatively rare pets until the 1980s. A
government study by the California State Bird and Mammal Conservation
Program estimated that by 1996 about 800,000 domestic ferrets were
being kept as pets in the United States."

I doubt if ferrets REALLY are the third most popular pet - fish, birds
and other tank kept animals probably truly beat them in popularity if
you are to count numbers. Rabbits and guinea pigs are likely well in
front of ferrets too, as pets.

Ferrets have MANY peculiarities that require specific housing,
management, feeding and interaction that way too many people do not
understand, nor do they take the time to learn; this of course puts
the ferret at risk or worse in a shelter.

Those of us WITH ferrets and that know ferrets can HELP their
popularity by educating the general public, as well as newbie
ferret owners to the nuances of these amazing companions!

Cheers,
Kim

please visit :
for ferret help and info:
http://holisticferret.proboards60.com/index.cgi
http://ferretopia.proboards51.com/index.cgi
yahoo groups Natural Ferrets

[Posted in FML 7341]