Unfortunately, PETA has a history of trying to destroy the status of
ferrets as domestic pets.  The central core objects to domestication,
thinking that all animals should be wild.  The approaches used by them
could worsen in the U.S. after yesterday's Supreme Court decision *IF*
the news reports on the implications that I heard are correct.  There was
a decision that one method of preventing to worst harassments of abortion
clinics can't be applied, and the lack of applicability was general case
for businesses in the descriptions.  This is choice of their's with wide
ranging implications for all sort of things, and it opens wider avenues
for the most extreme of groups like PETA.
 
Yes, I, too, have read of PETA staging things beyond the two I checked
into, and there was even one case in which they enraged a number of folks
in Europe over a ferret-farm venture that ***didn't even exist there***
once people checked on it (no request, no inquiries, no permits
requested, etc.).  It was just invented out of whole cloth to get people
excited and outraged.  There were also faked photos that were supposed to
be at one ferret farm and several people here checked into that so the
past posts in the FML Archives are interesting for noting the faking
aspects.
 
It is amazing that any group claiming to exist to help animals pursues
policies which destroy animals and doesn't put money into things that
save animals, like shelters.
 
Anyway, their history is of being a FOE of ferrets, not a friend.
 
With the European one it looked like they might have been trying to do
something to improve ferret conditions it was entirely faked -- a staged
thing to get people enraged and I suspect to try to bring in money to
them and keep paying their core employees big bucks.
 
The other one (in the U.S.) appears strongly to be at least partly faked.
 
They also have a history of saying anti-ferret things in magazine
interviews and the like.  For example, in an interview in Jane they
accused ferrets of being dangerous wild animals who are rabies vectors
and who have no rabies vaccine... This was AFTER the extensive CDC work
and the improvement to the Compendium, BTW.  I have heard of ones since
but can't off-hand recall where.
 
The group is a foe of ferrets and ferret folks.  There are better places
to donate one's money which actually DO help ferrets instead of hurting
them: places that improve veterinary care, places that shelter ferrets,
etc.
[Posted in FML issue 4072]