6/9/95
 
To  Jim, and general information: re: 6/7 post..
 
    I hope Cody is doing better.  I know how difficult it is when our furry
children are not feeling well.  I lost literally weeks of sleep when Timmy
was at the edge & declared "terminal" by the ama type guidelines.  I'm
still saying prayers for you all.
 
    I think I succeeded in deleting your fax # from the BFF distribution
list.  Sorry I knocked off the wrong # by accident the first time, this 5am
stuff doesn't help the brain.
 
    On the BFF situation, It seems that the FWS is doing the typical mis
information routine.  I think we're getting off the track of what is really
important, government deception & cover-up.  What we're talking about is
older debilitated ferrets that were not designed to be released into the
wild from the start, but intended to parent younger ones for the release.
 
    The original batch that were sent to Pueblo for "pre conditioning"
prior to being released to the wild included ones that had such severe
physical disabilities that they could not be expected to survive in the
wild.  (such as blind in one eye, little or no teeth, 3/4 of the group
examined were missing canines (these are essential for survival as they are
the killing teeth)).  They stopped Carolyn from examining the rest of them
as she was finding "too many problems".  Dean Biggins told one of us that
they refused to give the medical records to Carolyn as "they did not want
to give her any more ammunition".  Why else would someone ship an animal
with terminal cancer or a life long history of disease level coccidiosis, a
highly contagious disease that would be a hazard to healthy animals.  The
particular animal with this condition failed preconditioning and in fact
died before release.
 
    What the government trying to do to us is the typical divide and
discredit that it does to anyone that catches them at lying and deception,
and doing what should not be done!
 
    What follows is not a flame or personal attack in any way, I simply am
trying to address mis information that is being given out...
 
    I wonder if someone mis used some terms in talking about the video tape
to you..  (I'm not sure, but I think it was me that wrongly used the word
tame, and I apologize & take full responsibility for the error).  They
really should not be called tame like a domestic ferret, like you stated
"they are just looking for food" by climbing on the keepers, sniffing at
his beard, etc..  The accurate word is habituation and loss of wariness.
Actually climbing on people, sniffing at their beard, not biting bare hands
which are putting medicine down their mouth is not wild behavior.  If you
tried to do this with a common squirrel they would have no part, much less
a "wild" critter like a bobcat.
 
    What is being exhibited by the ferrets that have known people as non
threats, sources of food , etc., is lack of "wariness", or habituation.
The point is not that they are not "tame" enough to give kisses, if that's
what you're looking for, but the fact that they do not avoid people, and
when eating, do not seek cover, which is natural behavior that prevents
them becoming coyote food!  In ferret years, I'd guess it's like they have
spent all their lives with human contact, perhaps some 60 human equivalent
years, and in the case of many of the Wyoming ferrets, in cages.  To expect
them to know to avoid coyotes and other threats after all their lives not
having to worry about such things really does not make sense to me.
 
    What I'm most confused about is why you posted personal information/
derogatory opinions about Carolyn in public?  It came across like an
attempt at discrediting her.  I think the charge of "caring too much" is a
fine line, sometimes used to describe people that want to interfere with
inexcusable behavior on the part of people in power.  Hitler's generals
that would refuse to kill the Jews were shot for "caring too much".  The
fact that FWS lowered the original release numbers from 100 to some 14 + 14
or less as they look for medical problems says to me that they indeed were
going to "dump" not just old and not well suited ferrets in the wild, but
also ones that as Bruce Bessken, the director of resources for Badlands
park described, ones with broken and missing teeth, tumors, problems as bad
as your Cody has!  Someone from FWS confided that "we've often come under
criticism from the public to the extent that we've become numb to it".
This is what has caused me concern enough to stay up 'til 5am too many
nights.
 
    I have spent some 22 hours on the phone, multiple conversations, with
not only Larry Shanks, but also Pete Gober, Bruce Bessken (chief of
resource management for Badlands Park), Bruce Blanchard (acting federal
director of the FWS), Bruce Babbitts asn't George Franzen (secretary of the
interior), and LeChe Moore (interior dept. fraud, abuse & waste Hotline),
who thought enough of what's going on to launch a formal investigation into
the matter.  In spite of this, I would not make the statement that "I think
I have the most complete stories so far".
 
    I'm not trying to convince anyone to believe what they don't want to
believe, but I would advise caution in listening to government "information".
They told the soldiers at ground zero during the atom bomb experiments that
"there was nothing to worry about".  The same when they injected radio active
materials into their bodies to just see what would happen.  The same with the
Rocky Mountain nuclear bomb factory just outside Denver that is causing all
sorts of environmental damage, and hazard to humans.  The very depot where
the BFF's are raised in Pueblo, has ground so contaminated from dumping toxic
waste for 30 years, that the government has to buy bottled drinking water for
the people living in a 25 mile radius!  The same government however, feeds
raw, untreated water to the endangered ferrets they are trying to raise to
keep from extinction.  This is not a clear demonstration of intelligence, in
my opinion.
 
        Respectfully, Gary
[Posted in FML issue 1221]