This is a letter that Governor Gray Davis asked the Dept. of Fish And Game to write to me regarding legalization of ferrets in California. California has legal restrictions on the importation and possession of domestic ferrets and many other types of animals. These restrictions are necessary to protect our public health and safety, agriculture interests, and wildlife and other natural resources. The California Department of Fish and Game, California Department of Food and Agriculture, and California Department of Health Services are state agencies that are mandated to protect these interests. Escaped or abandoned ferrets at large are often captured by animal control agencies and humane societies in California. A domestic ferret has lived in a house and has never hunted would have little chance of surviving long in the wild. However, many owned ferrets hunt, either because they were trained to do so by their owners or because they are experienced at killing pest mice or rats, or small pets that they find in a house. Those experienced hunters would have a much better chance of surviving on their own in the wild if they escaped or were released. None breeding domestic ferrets have been found surviving in the wild even in wintertime in southeastern Alaska. Domestic ferrets have formed breeding populations in the wild in many parts of the world. Professional national surveys do not support claims of a half million to one million ferrets in California. In a nation wide pet ownership survey the American Veterinary Medicine Association estimated that there were 791,000 pet ferrets owned in the United States in 1996. At that national rate there would be fewer than, perhaps far fewer then, 100,000 ferrets in California. California Fish And Game Commission, at it's April 6th 2000 meeting in Sacramento, listen to a request from Californian's for Ferret Legalization to consider removing ferrets from the restricted species list. As explained at the Commission meeting, a regulatory action by the commission is considered a project under the California Environmental quality act (sections 20191 and 21160 of the public resources code), which requires the preparation of a governmental document therefore at the conclusion of the public testimony, the commission directed the Californians for ferret legalization, as project proponents, to fund the preparation of proposed action. Commission would not be in a position to again consider this matter until such an environmental document is prepared. Or departments concern over legalization of ferrets for pet keeping purposed centers around the risk to wildlife, predation by escaped ferrets, or predation and competition from breeding populations that might become established in the wild. California has such a wide range of climates and habitats, more varied then any other state, that it is likely they would thrive here either as feral individuals or as localized breeding populations information about the concerns our agency has about the domestic ferret is available on-line from our web site at http://www.dfg.ca.gov, or at http://www.dfg.ca.gov-hcpb-ferret_issues.html. Additionally, the Veterinary Public Health Section of the Department of Health Services (601 North 7th Street, Sacramento, California 95814) has concerns regarding the public health and safety matters. Thank you for expressing your concerns about ferret legalization matters in California, if you have further questions please contact Mr. Ronald D. Rempel, Deputy Director, Habitat Conservation Division, at the address or by telephone at (916) 653-1070 Signed Robert C. Hight We are not trying to flame any state or person. We only want to let the FMLers read a letter that we have received from the DFG and the chicken Governor of California. Myself I would like to know where in Southeast Alaska ferrets could survive the winter. This letter really made us laugh.. It is full of holes and sites no up to date info or statistics. How many ferret owners teach there ferrets to hunt or kill. We don't know of any that do except in Michigan where you can only own ferrets to hunt not as pets, or where the US Gov't is trying to repopulate the wild ferret businesses. [Moderator's note: The subject of the next post fits so perfectly with the links given above, don't you think? BIG] [Posted in FML issue 3629]