>From:    Edward Lipinski <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Marshall Farms and the American Ferret Ass'n...coconspirators?
 
Oh gads, come on, Ed, you are MY age!!!!!  You know better than to call
someone names just because they hold different opinions than you do.  Guess
you must have not gotten enough sleep last night <G>.  Yawn... There are
also things in which I disagree with AFA folks, but I know that they are
informed and involved involved individuals who have worked their tails off
(with too little volunteer help) to improve conditions for ferrets in the
U.S.  The reason MANY places (not just AFA) think that as long as places
like MF and the at least 4 other very large breeders supplying North America
should continue to neuter their ferrets before they go to pet shops are
simple -- there are already too many folks who don't provide even the basic
medical care (or decent living conditions) for their ferrets and this
proportion is larger among the uninformed (who are more likely to buy from
pet stores than from private breeders).  These are the sorts of people whose
response is going to too often be as follows (whether from neglect or just
not knowing better): 1. don't spay the females and just let them die of
aplastic anemia, 2. don't alter the males and either put them outside where
they can die of heat or be exposed to potentially fatal diseases, or
3. breed them which will lead to more turned loose to starve along with
more shelters finding they can't handle the load and more public shelters
destroying the "excess" as happens to so many, many tens of thousands of
cats and dogs.  Is early neuter an optimal solution?  No.  Would it be
wonderful to up the age at which they are neutered.  Yes.  (An older age
at sale may also decrease the individuals abused/battered/returned during
teething problems, and they could then neuter at an older age -- an idea to
mention when one writes to large breeders.)  Still, neutering at any age
allows most ferrets taken in by uninformed households to have far longer and
much better lives than they would have had without the neutering.  Plain and
simple.  If you want better then you have to work on trying to convince the
USDA and other government groups to increase the neutering and shipping
ages, or that there should be NO large breeders of petstock AND that any
animal species used as petstock should not be mass-bred as fur or research
stock (or that's where all the critters will go instead of a large portion
to pet stores), or that petstores should be barred from selling animals (and
also figure out a separate solution which will keep the rest of the "stock"
from becoming research and fur animals).  Meanwhile, education efforts for
owners, vets, pet stores (since the latter are sadly exceedingly often
reported as giving out mis-information), and pet publications (Modern ferret
excluded from this worry since that has very informed articles as oppossed
to some others which mix wonderfully informed articles with pieces done by
writers unfamiliar with ferrets.), combined with showing these multiple
large breeders why and how improving the conditions for their ferrets wil
help business (When in Rome...) still continue to have the best track record
for helping large numbers of ferrets.  It's nice to want optimal situations;
we all do -- the problem is that we live in the real world and have to
tackle what exists HERE.  I suspect that as long as there are so many people
out there who view their non-human family members the same way they view
their couch (possession) then there are some problems which will remain
insurmountable.  Still, I keep hoping that some more bright solutions which
will work in the real world will come up, and bit by bit folks DO come up
with them, so my faith in the abilities, hard work (ESPECIALLY hard work --
that is what gets MOST things done since ability is worthless if it doesn't
have any sweat behind it), and intelligence of ferret people of all sorts
is not misplaced.
 
Sukie
[Posted in FML issue 2377]