| How paranoid should I (or more correctly my daughter) be about the legal | status of ferrets in California. My daughter owns hers quite openly, | taking him just about everywhere: the mall shopping, coffee houses, for | walks, et cetera. No ones seems to care, though they certainly do | notice. Ferrets are magnets for attention - even in states where they're *legal.* I've owned ferrets in CA for 7 years. I often took them out in public, but never on a predictable basis. I rarely encountered law enforcement officials on these outings. On those rare occasions, they never threatened to conficate my ferrets. I used our outings to educate people about ferrets, but I was always very wary of any person asking me questions, and I did go out of my way to avoid just about anyone in uniform. I may be more careful than I have to be, but I don't think losing my ferrets is worth that risk. Your daughter should be most careful around any public or national park where she might run into CA Fish and Game officials. Not too many other law enforcement officials really care about illegal ferrets - unless you are actively breeding and selling them in CA. Plus most wouldn't know what to do with her ferret if they decided to confiscate it (at least that's what the CHP officer told me when he stopped me on I5 with my two stow-aways). But keep in mind that ANY CA official could decide to give your daughter a hard time. I don't think many officials other than F&G have the right to confiscate a ferret, but any official could suddenly decide that her ferret is some kind of threat to the public. The Humane Society is only a threat if your ferret escapes and someone turns it in to them. They will not return it to you and may destroy it. They'll probably turn it over to F&G. The humane society and CA F&G just don't have the man power to scan the newspapers for illegal ferrets. I've talked to a number of different people that work for the humane society and F&G. Every person was quite rude and uneducated about ferrets. I wouldn't want to run in to one of them with my fuzzies in tow. Here's a good and nice ferret vet in San Jose: Dr. Runyan Burbank Pet Hospital (408) 271-7875 [Posted in FML issue 0822]