A few months ago, shortly after I moved up here, I contacted my local
humane society and offered to be a go-between for them and the northwest
washington area ferret shelters.  They thanked me enthusiastically and
took my name and number, and I thought that would probably be the end of
it....but I guess I was wrong!
 
I got a call out of the blue today from a woman who said that a ferret had
taken up residence in their pump shed.  She said it was very friendly and
never attacked them or anything, but would move to the side and watch them,
hide and come back and watch them some more.  They had tried and failed to
catch it with a live trap (w catfood as bait) and were afraid to try to
catch it with their hands.
 
The good part was that the mice who were always after the grass seed stored
in the pump shed seemed to have been scared off, but the bad part was that
it was pooping EVERYwhere, right above the area that housed their
drinking-water holding tank.  So they had called fish/wildlife (who told
them to catch it and release it somewhere else...except they couldn't catch
it *sigh* gee is f/w the same everywhere???!), and then they called the
humane society, who gave them MY number. :-)  This was a last-ditch effort
as the husband was determined to shoot the ferret if they couldn't get rid
of it, but his wife really wanted to avoid that if at all possible,
especially if it was someone's escaped pet.
 
So.....I gathered up a jingle bell, squeaky toy, ferretone and raisins and
stuff like that, the carrier, and photos of my own ferrets, and drove 43
miles (86mi roundtrip) down there this afternoon.
 
I got there, was offered welding gloves (which I accepted) and was told
where to look in the shed once I got in the door--they said it usually
was sitting on the framing beam running across the top of the door, on
the inside.)  I ducked in the door, and found myself face to face with
a.....WEASEL.  A real one!!!  (Needless to say, after recovering from
stopping dead in the water out of surprise for a split second, I backed up
rather fast!)
 
It was SOOOO cute!  Little tiny thing, just a little bit longer than my
hand, a rich milk-chocolatey brown on top and winter-white undersides, its
tail just slightly darker brown, and bright, bright black eyes.  You
experts out there...is that what they call a "Least" weasel?  I (and the
other folks there) all thought that weasels were bigger than that...except
I know a ferret when I see one, and what I saw was sure as heck NOT a
ferret!!
 
After one half-hearted attempt to grab it (which earned me a weasel
"yell",) I gave up on trying to catch it.  Which is probably just as well
since I'm sure it's teeth would have sliced through the gloves I had like a
knife through butter.  We did end up chasing it out of the pumphouse,
though, and between me and 2 guys (husband and adult son) we ALMOST caught
it in a pail, only to have it escape off into the woods.  Hopefully we
scared the little rascal enough.  After showing off my ferret photos and
answering lots of questions about them, I left to go back home before it
got dark.  They are still going to try to live-trap it if it comes back;
they are going to try using chicken parts as bait.  (If anyone has any
better ideas about baiting weasels, please let me know.)
 
The good thing is that when I left they were more determined to continue to
try to trap the weasel (or at least scare it off) and not to shoot the poor
weasel...plus apparently they have been offered real ferrets in the past by
neighbors who didn't want theirs anymore, and they will now call me if they
hear of any such situations in the future.  Oh... and the woman said they
thought it was a ferret because it was about the same size as the ferrets
they saw in the petstore, she didn't realize they got any bigger.  (I
showed them photos of my 2 boys who, although small (2lb) for boy ferrets,
are a lot bigger than that weasel!)
 
So much for rescuing the ferret from the pumphouse <G>!
 
- Megan & Grover, Onyx, Loki, Satinka & Cherry ("Aw, ma, but we was
expectin' a new friend to play with!!) and Cinnebar the cat ("No, not
another one! Please!")
[Posted in FML issue 2585]