I am writing in regards to Cathy(Zoo) who runs a ferret sanctuary in Illinois. I run a ferret shelter in SC out of my home www.pebbspets.com. I take in unwanted and/or abused ferrets, rehab them if necessary and adopt them out to a home I inspect beforehand. However, if I decided to keep them, they would be my ferrets correct? Cathy apparently does not feel that this is the case. She takes in ferrets, decides to keep them(which makes them her pets), then asks for donations and receives 501(c)3 status from the government. She basically states that only she can take care of these ferrets. What is her limit? At a certain point, one family would not be able to care for so many and then she would be causing the same conditions that they supposedly arrived under. This is the definition of a collector. Which brings me to another point. If you read her website every ferret has some horrible story of abuse or health problem she had to pay for. I have had more ferrets than this pass through my doors and only very few fell in either of these categories. If I had a horrible story for each of my ferrets though, I would probably receive more donations. I feel giving her any publicity will encourage anyone who owns many animals to become a "sanctuary". This will further collectors and animal abuse and we will pay for it all with our tax dollars. Kudos to you Zoo. Shirley Pebbles [Moderator's note: I don't know why the subject contained "FML", but just in case anyone gets the wrong idea: No, the FML has nothing to do with running that sanctuary! BIG] [Posted in FML issue 3998]