It's sad that Troy Lynn, who has been a true ferret angel for so many
years is now the recipient of slime from the rumor mongers out there.
 
First a bit about rumor mongers and then a bit about Troy Lynn...
 
The rumor mill didn't exist early on, but when the FML got past a certain
size it started up, and I guess that is to be expected.  The rumor mill
has NEVER been a reliable source of information; it is virtually always
false.  Throughout its life the rumor mill has been a way for people to
attack others to whom they have taken a dislike and to abuse others who
too readily believe what the rumor mongers say -- using those gullible
souls the way that smugglers or shoplifters sometimes use unknowing
folks -- as unwitting mules to pass something along.  In recent years,
though, I've seen a new type of rumor and it has been cropping up a lot:
rumors where someone spreads one set of rumors making the originator
seems great and productive while actually taking credit for someone
else's work, at the same time as the same rumor monger is spreading an
equally false set of rumors trying to discredit the folks who actually
do the work.
 
Is this what happened to Troy Lynn?  That is entirely possible, and I
think that it is likely.  Troy Lynn has a long history of doing a huge
amount of things to help ferrets, and of doing without things for herself
so that she can help them.  Like so many others with shelters she works
and she writes not only to survive but to bring in monies to help support
the shelter.  I've never heard of a shelter out there where the people
running the shelter didn't also provide the bulk of the funding and of
the work.  That is the norm, and she is in the norm in those ways.
Through the years she has also helped coordinate the saving and placement
of confiscated ferrets from hoarders and from severely abusive backyard
breeders, the providing of medical care for those ferrets, and so on.
She has helped get prosecution of those who earned it.  She has helped
with legislative endeavors.  She is a co-moderator of the Ferret Health
List and an advisor to the International Ferret Congress.  During the
time when we were all working so hard toward getting ferrets to no longer
be needlessly sacrificed due to needless rabies fears Troy Lynn Eckart
and Dick Bossart were the two people who compiled the bulk of the
references used by all of us who were working so hard on that from
various angles.
 
Troy Lynn makes very little noise; she is too busy actually doing the
things that need to be done.  (Unlike the folks who make a pile of noise
about what they supposedly do while doing little to nothing.) Troy Lynn
would never brag about herself.  In her priorities in life ferret
well-being is way up there, so she is doing what she wants to do when she
devotes so much time and money to helping them.  We all chose where our
own time, money and effort go in this world.  Troy Lynn doesn't put her's
into a lot of frivolities or into talking herself up.  She puts them into
making positive changes in this world.
 
The good number of people here who have been to her home (and who know
that number of ferrets mentioned was fiction) and have adopted some of
the ferrets she has had through the years know this to be true and have
often said so right on this list.
 
Actions speak truthfully and Troy Lynn's past and present are full of
constructive actions.  Words, on the other hand, are easy, and the rumor
mill is full of those who say false ones.
 
BTW, I happen to know that one of those rumor mongers actually has spread
at least one false "quote" to "support" the lies about Troy Lynn, and I
have spoken with that expert who was falsely "quoted" and he was very
angry and horrified to hear that clap-trap.  He wanted to tackle the
rumor mongers himself, directly.  Do you know what Troy Lynn said?  She
said that it was more than enough to just be assured that he had never
said what he was so very falsely "quoted" as saying, and that if he knew
who it was he might be unconsciously less inclined to give help when that
person next needed it, and that might accidentally hurt a ferret.  Even
in this Troy Lynn put the ferrets first.  She saw past the sliming rumor
mongers and thought about their ferrets.
 
So, as I said earlier to someone who was -- hopefully only once and only
temporarily -- taken in by the rumor-mongers: don't believe rumors and
avoid rumor-mongering and those who create rumors.  They hurt everyone,
including those who believe them.  Believe a past of actual constructive
action.
[Posted in FML issue 4077]