Barbara writes
>A portion of this excerpt talks about predatory animals and in one
>paragraph is states and I quote "that the ferocious grizzly bear ranks
>about the same a mustelids (weasels, badgers, skunks and the like) ,
>which kill an average of four humans a year, primarily pet ferrets
>attacking unattended babies".
>
>Now is it just me or does this seem just a tad overblown!
 
This is not just overblown, it is flat out WRONG!  And dangerously so.
 
To the best of my knowledge, there are NO (as in zero, zip, nada!)
documentated cases of ferrets killing infants.  As I recall, there was
ONE report many years ago of an infant being killed by a ferret, but as
the household included a large breed dog, that animal was the more likely
culprit.  I also believe child neglect/abuse may have been involved.
Anyone recall more details of this?
 
This type of false reporting does irreparable harm to the ferret
community, and author Peter Stark and his publisher should be ashamed of
printing such egregious lies.  It also calls into question the validity
of everything else he writes.
 
Linda Iroff
Oberlin OH
[Posted in FML issue 3659]