Recently, there has been discussion on some other boards about the situation with Soren Thinggard and his Angora ferrets. Because more people read the FML then any other list, I am posting this information here, even though it hasn't really been discussed here. For those that have not heard about this, here is a brief synopsis of the situation. Soren Thinggard is a Danish breeder that breeds the true Angora ferrets. He ships these ferrets to a number of places, including the US. The source for his ferrets here in the US has been Parrots of the World, in Long Island, NY. For those that are not familiar with Parrots, it is the pet store run by Marc Morrone, who used to appear with his animals on Martha Stewart's TV show. Apparently, in Europe, there have been changes made to the required minimum size of cages for ferrets, and Soren's cages do not meet the new standards. The new rules take effect on January 1, 2005, and he is supposed to have his cages up to the new standard by then. Here is where the problem comes. Soren claims he does not have the necessary funds to obtain new cages for his breeding colony of 1,000 ferrets. Therefore, he wants to sell 850 of the ferrets and use the proceeds of the sale to obtain new cages for his remaining 150 ferrets. Now, attached to this story are a lot of rumors, some of which may be true. Apparently, Soren has emailed some people in the US stating that if he can not find a buyer for the 850 ferrets, he will gas all of the ferrets on January 1. He is asking $200,000.00 for the 850, and has said he will only sell them as a lot. This figure apparently does not include any shipping costs, which would be considerable. There are also stories of previous charges and convictions against Soren for animal abuse. Since Marc Morrone has been doing business with Soren for more then a few years, I emailed him the other day, trying to find out what was true about the situation, and what was rumor. When he replied to me, he indicated that he was suddenly receiving a number of emails, some of them overly emotional, about the situation, and asked me to share his reply with interested parties. Therefore, for any that are interested, here is Marc's reply. ********************** My goodness-what a tempest. I recived two e-mails about this first thing in the morning and I casually answered back that things are not always as they seem and people should not be judgemental about second hand information and I received very emotional replies back. Plus then I got about 20 more letters since then and since yours is the last I will tell you all that I know and perhaps you can foward this to everyone as I just have not the time to answer everybody. Now here we go-first of all there are 900 ferrets on Soren's farm. There is nobody at all in the US that could bring in that many ferrets. Even if Soren gave the animals away for free the shipping costs would be out of this world-for me to import 12 little baby ferrets from Soren in 2 boxes costs almost $3,000 between shipping and custom clearance and such and it takes so long to clear them that it drags into the middle of the night so you have to pay customs overtime charges-now imagine a shipment of 450 to 900 boxes-you could put a few jills in one box together but the adult hobs have to travel in separate boxes. Then you need vans or trucks to carry the boxes and plus you need someplace here to put the animals. Even if you brought in 50 adult animals it is still a huge undertaking and the animals can only come into Kennedy Airport or Newark Airport so you then have to coordinate shipping to other parts of the US that would be the ferret's final destination and that means more transportation charges. When I have to ship 6 ferrets in one week to different parts of the country it is a grueling task for me and the folks getting the ferret. The only place in the US that has the money to do all this is Marshall Farms and I talked to Peter Reid up there about it-they decided not to bring the angoras in as they are afraid that if they did then their colony of ferrets may pick up an ECE virus from the new ferrets and that would cause all kinds of problems. The same situation would apply with Path Valley or Triple F Farms-once you have bred a closed colony of animals you are loathe to bring in outside animals especially with an animal like a ferret that can suffer still from virus that are unknown to us. Now I have mixed Soren's ferrets with my own as well as kits from Triple F and Path Valley Farm and all is well here-no virus at all- but I do not make my living from breeding ferrets so I cannot fault the three major ferret farms for not wanting to bring the animals to their own facility. Now most likely Soren thinks that there really is a chance that there is someone here that will buy all the animals so as a salesman that would explain why he is sounding so hard about the whole thing. I personally do not agree with this philosophy but then again I am not a good businessman or a good salesman. I make a living by running a pet store and being on a small syndicated tv show and that is about it but I do my best to do and say the right thing-but that is me-I cannot fault other people for not having my values. Now as far as Sorens' animal husbandry situation- my brother in law lives in Copenhagen and in 1976 he asked me for a ferret and I said that it would cost a bundle for me to ship a US bred ferret to him and most likely he should get one form a Danish breeder. So he went to Soren's and walked around his place and took photos and sent the photos back to me. I looked at the photos and it looked like any other commercial ferret farm-ferrets in suspended wire cages in outdoor barns with attached nest boxes full of straw. The ferrets looked fine and I gave my brother in law the OK to go ahead and buy. He ended up buying two angoras from Soren and he introduced Soren to me and that is how we met. I was fasinated by these angora ferrets and still am. So every summer since 1996 I have imported Soren's ferrets and the kits have always arrived fat and healthy and well packed-I also have clients in Japan that import Soren's ferrets and they have also had very good results. As far as articles and such about Soren-if you do a Google search engine about me you will find lots of articles about me that say how awfull I treat my animals and what a mean and money grubbing animal dealer I am and the people making these acusations always seem to have lots of evidence to prove it. However most people that meet me face to face or see my store with thier own eyes do like me and I always reserve judgement based on my own experiance-every animal I received or my friend's in other parts of the world received from Soren were tip top. My brother in law says that pet people in Copenhagen seem to hate Soren and are always publishing nasty articles about Soren so I do not know- but- my brother in law still goes to Soren's to buy his ferret's food and everything seems fine to him. The animal right's people in Europe make Peta look like little old ladies and I would not want them on my case as they are now on Soren's because they never give up. Soren did not bring any of these current problems on himself-these were new rules pushed thru in the Europe and Soren is trying decide what his options are based on the current circumstances. I am not a commercial breeder of animals who has a family to support based on those animals so I cannot say what I would say or do in such a situation. I do not argue that Sorens' words are not harsh-but then again he is from a different culture than we are plus he speaks hardly any English. If the animals are gassed it is not Soren's doing -it is the doing of the people that pushed the new housing rules thru-if Soren gave the animals away tommorrow for free then nobody here still could not import them into the US due to the situations described above. It is my personal opinion that most likely the animals will end up at the last minute at one of the large commercial farms in Holland or Sweden. Or perhaps an extension will be granted to Soren when the authorities realize the extent of what they are doing. I very much doubt that all Soren's animals will be gassed as everyone seems to be worrying about. Now this is a very long e-mail so be sure to read it all very carefully and at least three times before you think about things-this is a very emotional subject and I trust you to be very carefull in letting other ferret people here read this as surely someone will take what I have said the wrong way and I surely do not want to get anyone angry at me. Something is happening that never happened before and we have to sit back and wait and see for a while before we all get hysterical. Sincerly Marc Morrone -- Danee International Ferret Congress Health Issues Coordinator http://ferretcongress.org ADV - If your ferret hasn't been tested, you don't know! For more information visit: http://www.ferretadv.com You can help fight ADV! Visit: http://help4adv.terrabox.com/ [Posted in FML issue 4703]