I sent a reply off to the person questioning whether to use a water filter
or not.  His/her reply back to me stated that there were many replies
discussing taste, but not many addressing health issues.  That made me think
that maybe I should bring it up as a discussion.
 
It seems to me that there are 3 primary environmental issues with our
ferrets.  Air, food, and water.  We are spending a heck of a lot of time
discussing food (possibly because it is what we have the most control over).
I'm no expert on the subject, but I've heard a lot of things that make me
think maybe we should be looking a little more closely at the water, too.
 
I think we have all heard that chlorine is a bad thing, it's just not as bad
as the nasties that would grow in our water if it wasn't there.  So that
alone would be a good reason to filter your water.  Especially drinking
water, although I believe that chlorine can be absorbed through the skin,
too.  (And, I don't remember exactly why chlorine is bad - hey, I said I
wasn't an expert...)
 
There was an HBO special on breast cancer some months (years?) ago.  This
special showed that a correlation was discovered in a certain community
between occurrence of breast cancer and women living on culdesacs.  The
reason that they came up with was that the water mains terminated on the
culdesacs, and the heavy metals in the water accumulated there.  Not proof,
but enough to make you think.  And, if that IS the reason, wouldn't our
little 1-4 lb furrries be more susceptible to it than a human would?  Kind
of like the canary in the mine shaft?  So, if humans are effected by a
larger dose than usual of these minerals, perhaps ferrets have problems at a
much lower level, one that is within acceptable bounds for human
consumption.
 
Even if it isn't the heavy metals, we all know there is all sorts of nasty
things that are allowed (and are even purposefully added) to be in our
drinking water.
 
I don't have any kind of proof, but filtering drinking/cooking water is one
of the "better safe than sorry" things that I live by.  But I have only
adopted that in about the last 3-4 years, and I don't maintain a large
population of ferrets.  So I can't even speculate if it has effected us one
way or the other.
 
Has anyone seen any situations that might support/debunk this theory?  Large
households of ferrets who drink well water that seem to have less (or more)
problems than other groups?  Correlation between cancer rates in households
who filter and those that don't in the same area?
 
- Nancy
[Posted in FML issue 2313]