About a year ago I was dating a man I met online from New Zealand and was actually contemplating moving there someday. Ferrets are most definitely banned - period. Those that had them at the time of the ban were allowed to keep them (I believe they had to register them, though, and pay a fee) but there were no further ferrets allowed into the country. Ironically enough, though, he found there were a few breeders in New Zealand still but they maintained "Fort Knox"-like facilities so that the ferrets couldn't escape. They breed the ferrets there then export them out to other countries. What started this whole ferret ban were farmers that brought rabbits with them into the country. The rabbits then got loose and multiplied as rabbits do. Unlike other countries where there are foxes and other predators that might help keep this population down - New Zealand didn't have any. New Zealand has lots of birds, lots of reptiles, marine life such as seals and whales but NO predators. So someone got the bright idea of bringing ferrets to the country and setting them loose to control the rabbit problem. Well they did just that - but then they also started eating the flightless birds and the flightless birds' eggs. (I wonder if they really thought the ferrets would go "Rabbit population under control - ready to go back to the UK!" and line up at the airport????) I did lots of searches on this and did find some pretty gross photos of hunters with a spread of dead ferrets that they bagged. It's really sad because the problem was all man-made. And the ferrets - and the ferret lovers there that can no longer have ferrets - have to suffer for it. Laura and The Seattle Seven at http://www.ferretocious.com [Posted in FML issue 5147]