It's sad that Troy Lynn, who has been a true ferret angel for so many years is now the recipient of slime from the rumor mongers out there. First a bit about rumor mongers and then a bit about Troy Lynn... The rumor mill didn't exist early on, but when the FML got past a certain size it started up, and I guess that is to be expected. The rumor mill has NEVER been a reliable source of information; it is virtually always false. Throughout its life the rumor mill has been a way for people to attack others to whom they have taken a dislike and to abuse others who too readily believe what the rumor mongers say -- using those gullible souls the way that smugglers or shoplifters sometimes use unknowing folks -- as unwitting mules to pass something along. In recent years, though, I've seen a new type of rumor and it has been cropping up a lot: rumors where someone spreads one set of rumors making the originator seems great and productive while actually taking credit for someone else's work, at the same time as the same rumor monger is spreading an equally false set of rumors trying to discredit the folks who actually do the work. Is this what happened to Troy Lynn? That is entirely possible, and I think that it is likely. Troy Lynn has a long history of doing a huge amount of things to help ferrets, and of doing without things for herself so that she can help them. Like so many others with shelters she works and she writes not only to survive but to bring in monies to help support the shelter. I've never heard of a shelter out there where the people running the shelter didn't also provide the bulk of the funding and of the work. That is the norm, and she is in the norm in those ways. Through the years she has also helped coordinate the saving and placement of confiscated ferrets from hoarders and from severely abusive backyard breeders, the providing of medical care for those ferrets, and so on. She has helped get prosecution of those who earned it. She has helped with legislative endeavors. She is a co-moderator of the Ferret Health List and an advisor to the International Ferret Congress. During the time when we were all working so hard toward getting ferrets to no longer be needlessly sacrificed due to needless rabies fears Troy Lynn Eckart and Dick Bossart were the two people who compiled the bulk of the references used by all of us who were working so hard on that from various angles. Troy Lynn makes very little noise; she is too busy actually doing the things that need to be done. (Unlike the folks who make a pile of noise about what they supposedly do while doing little to nothing.) Troy Lynn would never brag about herself. In her priorities in life ferret well-being is way up there, so she is doing what she wants to do when she devotes so much time and money to helping them. We all chose where our own time, money and effort go in this world. Troy Lynn doesn't put her's into a lot of frivolities or into talking herself up. She puts them into making positive changes in this world. The good number of people here who have been to her home (and who know that number of ferrets mentioned was fiction) and have adopted some of the ferrets she has had through the years know this to be true and have often said so right on this list. Actions speak truthfully and Troy Lynn's past and present are full of constructive actions. Words, on the other hand, are easy, and the rumor mill is full of those who say false ones. BTW, I happen to know that one of those rumor mongers actually has spread at least one false "quote" to "support" the lies about Troy Lynn, and I have spoken with that expert who was falsely "quoted" and he was very angry and horrified to hear that clap-trap. He wanted to tackle the rumor mongers himself, directly. Do you know what Troy Lynn said? She said that it was more than enough to just be assured that he had never said what he was so very falsely "quoted" as saying, and that if he knew who it was he might be unconsciously less inclined to give help when that person next needed it, and that might accidentally hurt a ferret. Even in this Troy Lynn put the ferrets first. She saw past the sliming rumor mongers and thought about their ferrets. So, as I said earlier to someone who was -- hopefully only once and only temporarily -- taken in by the rumor-mongers: don't believe rumors and avoid rumor-mongering and those who create rumors. They hurt everyone, including those who believe them. Believe a past of actual constructive action. [Posted in FML issue 4077]