Q: "What would you do to give ferrets in shelters an interesting and
    stimulating environment?"
 
Ferrets require physical, emotional and intellectual stimulation.  While
the stimulation of one area at the expense of others might be considered
better than nothing, and certainly the omission of one area for short
periods does little harm, zoo and ethological research has shown failure to
provide for all three needs often results in neurotic behaviors, such as
cage biting, pacing, fur-pulling, disinterest, eating or chewing cloth or
other items, and aggressive behaviors resulting from stress, boredom and
frustration.  Evidence also suggests a failure to address these needs often
results in the animal failing to thrive; simply put, they deteriorate from
unknown causes until they die.  Failure to provide for all three needs is
a common problem in many shelters.  Generally speaking, the worst problems
exist in the largest shelters, but these difficulties are faced by all
rescuers, thus the solutions are valuable to everyone.
 
Physical needs are most commonly addressed by shelters, where attempts are
made to allow ferrets out of their cages for an hour or so each day.  The
problem not recognized is that ferrets generally have more than one
activity period a day; usually they have two major and several minor
periods.  Excluding the minor periods from discussion, the major activity
periods result in changes in metabolic rates and physiology, which in turn
effects the entire body, including the hormonal, digestive, and metabolic
systems.  The weasel family are energetic, active, exploring creatures and
have evolved a physiology to support such an active lifeway.  Being caged
during these major biorhymatic periods has been proven to be a major source
of frustration and stress for ferrets.  Some studies suggest a lack of
physical activity erodes the immune system, stresses the cardiovascular
system and increases neurotic disorders.  Other studies suggest physical
activity is the number one stress-reducing agent in captive animals, and
hours of unrestrained play has a significant role in increasing the overall
health of the individual.  These studies are supported by the increase in
health, life span, breeding activity and reduced neurotic behaviors in zoo
animals that are housed in "natural" environments allowing unrestrained
physical activity.
 
Intellectual needs are less commonly addressed, although that is slowly
changing.  Ferrets are extremely intelligent animals--superb problem
solvers--and evolved that way to better survive their environmental niche.
They use a wandering, investigatory method to find food; searching,
digging, exploring, sniffing and turning over things is their method of
hunting.  These are primary or core behaviors, and you cannot force a
ferret to refrain from them without creating unhealthy stress to the
animal.  There are an overwhelming number of studies proving captive
animals that are not intellectually stimulated often display extremely
neurotic behaviors, from a minor as cage pacing to as major as
self-mutilation.  These needs cannot be met in an animal that is caged
most of the time, because the cage is limited in scope and area.  A ferret
quickly learns each part of the cage in a few hours; inagine how boring
the environment becomes after months of captivity.  The cage simply cannot
offer intellectual stimulation for the average, healthy ferret because it
does not allow the ferret to use those evolutionary core behaviors so
important to its mental health; including exploring new environments,
searching for food, identifying new odors, and solving food procurement
problems.  Zoo studies have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that animals
allowed to use their core behaviors are far healthier and display fewer
neurotic behaviors than those where the activity is frustrated.
 
It is much harder to find studies to support emotional stimulation because
of the difficulty in defining animal emotion.  Additionally, there is the
very real problem of anthropomorphism, or assigning human emotions to
ferrets.  There is a common misunderstanding about anthropomorphism in that
people mistake a denial of human-type fear/love/happiness to be a denial of
ferret-type fear/love/happiness.  Instead, it states that each species
feels emotions relative to their own unique evolutionary history.  Thus,
humans feel human love and ferrets feel ferret love.  Despite the
difficulty in assigning emotions to specific behaviors, one thing can be
easily infered, and that is basic actions tend to illustrate basic
emotions.  So, fear biting is a good indicator of fear, and hair standing
on end is a good indicator of excitement.  Emotional stimulation is nothing
more than the attempt to create specific emotional states of a positive
nature, such as feelings of security, excitement, or happiness.  A few
studies in animals have shown the stimulation of positive emotional states
tend to reduce the exhibition of more negative emotional states, such as
aggressive behaviors, biting, overeating, and depression.  Numerous studies
have linked the emotional state of animals to their overall health, with
animals having positive emotional stimulation to display less stress and
fewer neurotic behaviors.
 
Overall, these three areas are intimately connected, with one directly
influencing the other.  Because of this, a ferret who is not having its
emotional needs addressed may display problems suggestive of a lack of
physical or intellectual stimulation.  Because of this difficulty in
teasing out the truthful answers, the easiest solution is to maintain the
highest possible degrees of stimulation in all three areas.  When
addressing ferret shelters problems, the difficultly is finding the
manpower and time to adequately meet these needs on a consistant basis,
especially when overwealmed with a tremendous number of ferrets that have
ALREADY been shown to have problems in these areas.  In other words, those
behaviors and problems that are already being displayed by ferrets who have
neglected physical, intellectual and emotional needs CAN HAVE behaviors
EXACERBATED by the shelter system--instead of cured--because of a lack of
understanding of the problem, as well as a lack of resources to combat
them.  The result can be a ferret, thought cured of fear-biting and adopted
out, to suddenly revert to its former behaviors, perhaps to an even more
severe degree; a complaint that is commonly reported.
 
Bob C and 20 MO' Poop Shooters
[Posted in FML issue 2524]