I got the new issue of Modern Ferret in the mail today - what a neat centerfold! And a wonderful story about the cable laying ferret from the turn of the last century, brought to light by Bob Church. I predict a run on used bookstores for a copy of the book this story is from. As for GCFA's overcrowded shelter, filled with bald ferrets, I can only speak from my personal experience with them when I was the president of FURRY, a ferret rescue in St. Louis. We offered to help relieve their overcrowding at one point (two or three years ago), because our shelter was almost empty. We drove up to Chicago (which is approx. 5 hours from St. Louis) and spent most of the day waiting around the shelter for people to bring ferrets in, that would then be handed over to us. My memory of that day includes Norm saying that we couldn't take any of the ferrets that were already in the shelter, because it would break the volunteers' hearts. At that point, and I don't know if it was for financial or philosophical reasons, they were not doing surgeries on adrenal ferrets. They were treating with medication. They were also not doing adoptions anywhere besides the shelter. Of course, this may have changed in the interim, but it was never mentioned in their newsletter. Petsmart in particular and some independent pet stores are usually eager to work with shelters, especially if you have your 501(c)3 status. I know that it's really hard to know whether someone will give a shelter ferret a good home, especially if they've never owned ferrets before. However, it's easy to make it too difficult to adopt, and most ferret people I know have LOTS of ferrets already, making it difficult for them to add to their family. After all, of the 3000+ people on this list, how many have fewer than three ferrets? Running a shelter is very hard work, and I am certainly not trying to slam anyone here. But since the GCFA seems to have continuous problems with overcrowding, maybe the board should realize that something is not working and perhaps there's a different way of doing things that would relieve that issue. Sara & Taranis, Zeus, Spice Girl and Orlando [Posted in FML issue 3883]