Helo everyone,
 
Those of you in the greater San Francisco Bay area, please take a moment to
write to the editor Of the San Francisco Chronicle and complain about an
article by Staff Writer Paul McHugh.  The article came out Thursday, July
24th, in the outdoors section and was entitled "Bird-Watching Gets Serious."
Mr. McHugh talks about the new activist birdwatchers and says that in
California, birder groups... battled a state bill to permit ferrets as
pets--since these varmints would wreak havoc on birds if they escaped into
the wild."
 
Please, CHRONICLE SUBSCRIBERS, and anyone else in the greater Bay Area,
write to the editor and complain about this ugly, inflammatory statement.
We should not tolerate the reference to a domesticated companion animal as a
"varmint"!  This implies ferrets are best exterminated and it is a crime
that the Chronicle printed such nonsense.  Also the claim by Mr. McHugh of
what ferrets would do in the wild differs with what wildlife biologists say.
Robert S. Ellarson, of the Universtiy of Wisconsin, says in his article
"Ferrets" in the Encyclopedia Americana, that ferrets do not survive more
than about 3 days in the wild.  "Wreak havoc" on our wildlife?  Prove it Mr.
McHugh!  Where in has that happened?
 
The only places where ferrets have managed to survive in the wild was where
we intended them to: New Zealand (where we pumped unaltered ferrets, hybrid
ferret-polecats, and wild polecats into the environs by the thousands for
decades), and San Juan, WA where again we loosed unaltered ferrets to
control rabbits (they survived for a few years then died out).  And what's
left in New Zealand is some kind of combo ferret-polecat hybrid.  And anyone
wanting to compare the US to New Zealand has a biased agenda-- they're not
the same.  Where in the continental US did flightless birds evolve?  Where
are there no ground or air predators?  The ferret managed to survive in this
predatorless environment for one reason: it was predatorless.  But here?
Wreak havoc?  The environment here wreaks havoc on the ferret, not the other
way around.
 
From the California Research Bureau Report "Dean Biggins, a leading expert
on the black-footed ferret and project leader for the black-footed ferret
project, U.S.G.S.  Biological Resources Division, did explain how difficult
it has been to reestablish those animals in the wild, even though they are
much closer to their wild progenitors.... He asserted that escaped domestic
ferrets (like the black-footed ferrets) are more likely to become prey than
to survive long as predaors in any ara with predators (including cats and
dogs).
 
Listen Bay Area ferret fans.  We want an editorial in support of ferret
legalization from the Chronicle, because it's fair and it's right, not this
baloney.  Please write ASAP to the editor.  Remember our bill has to pass
the Appropriations Committee and the Senate and the Governor.  Let's get
another editorial in support.
 
Write to (again, polite but with passion-- no name calling, just the facts):
 
Editor
S. F. Chronicle
901 Mission St.
San Francisco, CA  94103
(415) 543-3754  (fax)
 
Jeanne Carley
Californians for Ferret Legalization (CFL)
410 Mountain Home Road  Woodside, CA  94062
(415) 851-3750   <[log in to unmask]>
http://www.ferretnews.org-- CFL Website
CALIFORNIANS, YOU CAN FIND OUT YOUR ASSEMBLYMEMBER AND STATE SENATOR BY
VISITING THIS SITE!! IT'S TIME TO CALL AND WRITE YOUR SENATOR--THE FIRST
COMMITTEE VOTE WILL HAPPEN SOON!
[Posted in FML issue 2014]