Last year I posted that a local zoo had ferrets as part of their (wild)
animal Christmas presentations.  The docents were incredibly ignorant about
ferrets and made many negative comments about them while handling them with
thick leather gloves.  I was there with my vet and another ferret owner.  My
vet and I both wrote the zoo and never received a response.  As this holiday
season came around with the ads for the Christmas presentations I decided to
write their vet who also has a private practice asking him to look into
whether they had made any corrections and whether they paid any attention to
what their docents were saying since they didn't respond to me or my vet.
Well he passed it on and I finally heard from the director.  He said he
didn't respond because of "deliberately inflammatory and incorrect
statements" described the docents as having been "overenthusiasm in describe
ferrets as poor pets and has graphic description of their means of killing";
they said "even though ferrets are legal they dont make good pets because
they are vicious and can rip the throat out of a dog"!  and that they made a
few "minor overstatements, I have not found that our staff or volunteers
made any errors in fact in their presentations".  He goes on to say "We base
our education programs on the most current and accurate scientific facts
that we are able to collect.  Pet and promotional literature is always our
last choice because they are so often heavily biased by emotions and not
facts.  If you have documented scientific literature about ferret biology or
ecology which you would like to share..."
 
OK - so us pet people don't know anything and I need SCIENTIFIC or
GOVERNMENT literature to pass on.  Anyone got ideas for finding the above I
can forward to these people?  The info they were passing was totally
negative and of no informational value.  Quite frankly I believe that's
because they were presenting a DOMESTIC animal in a WILD animal presentation
with an owl and a snake.  So no information on spaying females, care etc.
was passed on and there isn't much to say about how they live in the wild is
there?  No mention of the BBF was made or or where domestic ferrets fit into
the mustilid family.
 
Thanks for any article lists etc. you can pass on.
Mary, Boris and Giesela (Hey mom - can we rip the throat out of a dog? Wow!)
P.S.  While my letter might have been a little inflaming I read Dr. Monroe's
and it was definetly diplomatic and they should have at least answered hers.
[Posted in FML issue 1793]