Recently I received an e-mail from Bill Gruber of the FML that had a
listing by state of many of the Ferret Shelters in the country, the out
standing bills, and resident numbers.
 
I was amazed that California was the second highest loading of rescued
ferrets with 225 rescues in shelters.  For a state where the animal is
illegal to have, sure is allot of rescued ferrets.  This only gives ammo to
the legislators for their contention that people are not to have ferrets.
 
Most states had about 50 or so with a salting in the upper mid west area
that had just over 100 or so.  Virginia lead the whole country by a very
wide margin with 315 rescued ferrets!  California was next but for a state
that is 4 times as big as Virginia, it had only 2/3 the rescues Virginia
has.
 
This raises the question of why this one area is so ferret unfreindly!
Just what is the problem here?  It ruins my day to hear of the horror
stories of what some of these animals suffer.  Eats my heart out.  Here I
am in the middle of the worst offending public in the country, according
to these statistics.  What can I do to curb this problem?
 
I have contacted Gene Lepley of Channel 12 news with a copy of this article
and a short dialogue of my own asking him to do a human interest story.
This may raise public awareness, maybe not.  Gene and I have had much
dialogue on aviation reporting where the news will sensationalize with
reckless abandon any air incident, the safest form of transportation on
earth, but seldom much more than a word on the 54,000 road deaths a year.
Having been personally trained by Greg Feith, Director of Major Air
Disasters NTSB, I won.  So, having Gene's respected attention I may have
a shot at public education in direction of ferret welfare and well being.
 
If you do not have a copy of this shelter list, e-mail me and I will
forward a copy to you that you also my use the media to open some eyes.
 
Thanks.
 
Gordon, Byte-me & Nibble-ed
 
[Moderator's note: The shelter list goes out to everyone subscribed to the
FML (except for a few people who have asked not to receive it).  BIG]
[Posted in FML issue 3081]