At 04:00 12/01/01, Danielle Frye wrote: >So what do you tell someone like me, who has seen 80% of MF ferrets she >has fostered, rescued or adopted with health problems by the age of three? >Is it just that I have been someone who manages to end up with all the MF >ferrets who have terminal illnesses? I doubt it. Your statistics aren't supported by many others. If what you say is true, I suspect you (your shelter) is the victim of people who decide to give up their ferrets just because they are sick. There's a lot of that going around and it isn't confined just to ferret shelters. I can't even begin to count the number of reports from shelters who just took in a new arrival and were scheduling adrenal surgery within the next few days and needed donations to help. I think shelter stats on health and mortality should be very suspect unless we can be assured the phenomenon of dumping off already ill animals is taken into account in a proper and unbiased fashion. I'm afraid what I see in the meantime is a case of those who believe in UFOs being the ones who see them all the time. One has to wonder why this is so. Jim H [Posted in FML issue 3619]