Q: "...he's spotted a "wild" ferret of some type in Saugus, CA.  He claims
he first saw it in a woodpile (sounds familiar), and then dragging a
squirrel into a hole (unfamiliar).  He further notes that it resembles a
picture of a BFF that he found, only this critter's skinnier..."
 
A: At least he knows whats in his woodpile; I'm still finding out about
mine....and it ain't a ferret....
 
One of my pet (ho!) peeves is how definitions change for different animals.
An attacking dog is "defending its territory," while a ferret is
"blood-thirsty and viscious."   Feral is another word that gets defined
differently for different animals.  The ferrets living in New Zealand *are*
feral; they live, eat, breed and sustain a viable population without help
from humans.  A lost or strayed ferret is not a feral animal, no matter what
the CaCa Fish and Gestapo say.  With a half million ferrets in California
(isn't that the recent estimations?), it is possible that a couple might get
lost from time to time.  But what I have never understood is why a lost or
strayed cat or dog are called "lost" or "strayed," while a lost or strayed
ferret is called "feral."
 
One thing struck me in the description of the animal in question.  He said
it was just like the BBF, only skinnier.  If the animal is in fact a ferret,
this wouldn't make sense.  Mustelids are famous for "resource partitioning;"
that is, the difference species come in different sizes to eat different
things.  In mustelids, they take it one step further with males and females
being difference sizes.  So a female least weasel is smaller than a male
least weasel which is smaller than a female short-tailed weasel (ermine)
which is smaller than a male short-tailed weasel which is smaller than a
female long-tailed weasel which is smaller than a male long-tailed weasel
which is smaller than a female black-footed ferret which is smaller than a
male black-footed ferret which is smaller than a female mink which is
smaller than a male mink.  Ferrets and mink are about the same size, eat
about the same stuff, and resource partition similarly.  In California, the
BBF is not present, so the rest have a slightly wider range of variation to
fill in the gap.  Now, are you beginning to understand what I mean when I
say there is no room for the ferret to go feral in CaCa land?
 
I don't think he saw a ferret. Most BBF average 500 grams (about a pound)
which is still smaller than most female ferrets, who hit the scales at
about 600-750 grams (about 1.25-1.75 lbs) nearly identitical to the weight
of the female mink. If he saw something skinnier than a BBF, then it
looked more "weaselly" than "ferretty." By that I mean, ferrets and mink
have identical body shapes; they are stockier than a weasel, who looks in
comparison to be quite skinny. That is because weasels are proportionately
longer per mass compared to a ferret or mink. If a ferret looked skinnier
than a BBF, it was either a very young (less than 3 months) kit, which I
doubt could kill a squirrel, or a very skinny and small female, probably
starving, and both would be abnormally long.
 
What the person saw is probably a long-tailed weasel (_Mustela_frenata_)
with bridled (or brindled) markings (a ferret-like mask).  These are quite
common in southern portions of California, and, in fact, one of the older
names for the long-tailed weasel was "Bridled Weasel." They are lighter in
color than sable ferrets, they have facial markings like the ferret, and
they certainly look like the BBF only skinnier.  One way to tell the
difference is to look for a light underbelly which isn't typically found in
ferrets.  Killing the squirrel (probably a California ground squirrel,
_Spermophillous_beecheyii_) and dragging it into the hole is typical of the
hunting antics of long-tailed weasels.  Long-tailed weasels are known
predators of ground squirrels; I have watched dozens of kills.  I don't know
where Saugus is (not on my available maps) but knowing the distribution of
the trait, I would guess either in the mountain areas between Bakersfield
and Los Angeles, or from that point towards the desert through the
Tehachapis, turning south around Riverside and extending into Mexico and
Arizona.  Get a copy of Ernest Thompson Seton's "Lives of Games Animals"
(1929) and you will see an excellent illustration of a bridled weasel just
under the illustration of a BBF.
 
This mistake is an easy one to make; the Ca Ca Fish and Gestapo have done it
themselves.  There is a story about a Bakersfield-area Fish and Gestapo
agent who had killed a feral domestic ferret and had it stuffed to show
everyone what they looked like.  It was on display for quite some time until
a biologist walked in and asked why the long-tailed weasel was mislabeled.
In this case you would expect a game warden to know their game, which I
guess illustrates the problem in CaCa Land.  It also illustrates another
problem, which is sometimes called observer bias, but what I like to call
"The Evidence of the Paranoid." It goes, "The chances of finding rare or
non-existent evidence is proportional to the desire of finding it,
especially when coupled with prejudice." In other words, if your goal is
finding feral ferrets, any thing remotely approximating its coloration and
size will be recognized as one.  Even *if* it is a brindled long-tailed
weasel (or in the case of the F&Gestapo, a weiner dog in a clown suit
accompanied by a 7-ft albino Nigerian singing sea dittys.  "Lookie Frank,
dere he got hisself a ferret critter.  Get yer gun!")
 
For more information of partitioning of mustelids, I recommend:
 
Tamar Dayan and Daniel Simberloff 1994 Character displacement, sexual
dimorphism, and morphological variation among British and Irish mustelids.
"Ecology" 75(4):1063-1073.
 
Note page 1070: "Polecats and American mink take similar prey, largely
medium-sized mammals and birds; of particular interest are the semi-aquatic
(and possibly aquatic) prey taken by both (citations).  The ecological
similarity suggests a study of ecological relationships between polecats and
mink rather than those between mink and otters, as been previously
attempted.  Perhaps mink are not radiating into a historically empty niche
but into one whose occupant has been heavily persecuted."
 
Bob C and 20 MO Brindled Beasties
[Posted in FML issue 2208]