Hey Now, A belated congrats on issue 1000, mr. lewis dude. Me and my weasel, under deep cover in the Berkeley FFZ appreciate the fellowship of other right-minded individuals (And the humans they live with). Cut to the chase. There are self sustaining populations of mustela furo in this great big world of ours. New Zealenders introducted the little bastards along with weasels and stoats to their island oasis in 1882 as an attempt to control the rabbits which they had introduced earlier. It was sheer "night of the lupus", though, until the 1950's when the technology of poisoning allowed effective rabbit reduction, a reduction which, in turn, reduced the ferret population. Nontheless, they are out there, dooking softly in the dark, eyes gleaming as peter cottontail hops on down that bunny trail. A Dr. Clapperton (sp?) publishes quite a bit on these wild weasels, and other information is available by indexing "fitch" which is the name for the pelt of the fitch ferret (i.e. a sable). One aside...the scandinavians now have several all or mostly ferret fur farms. Tell that to your fuzzies when they eat your sofa. There are also documented sustaining populations one the island of sardinia and there is some evidence of wild populations in scotland, but they could just be escaped pets. While there is no hard evidence of breeding colonies on the lam here in the americas, the california department of morons, headed by the maggot who wrote that "the pet european ferret is a threat to livestock, wildlife, and public health" claims that they have recorded enough sightings to postulate the existence of feral populations here. Hey bud, if sightings were science, they'd have a trained Nessie at sea world. So, anyhow, there are a few wild communities. It's like the situation with domestic dogs gone au naturel, though. As far as i know, these wild woozles are all descendent from domestic stock, which, in turn, is very close genetically to the european polecat but with a skull shape closer to that of the siberian steppe polecat (eversman's polecat). Okay, 'nuff said on that. Previously i posted that i'd read stuff by some guys who did a breakdown of courtship behaviour in the black-footed and the domestic ferret. They found that the behaviours of the two species were so close as to be practically identical, and suggested that domestic ferrets could be used as surrogates for black-footed ferrets in some research. How's that for a research paper basis? Finally, about my own malicious mustelid. She likes to dig open small openings...like the gap underneath the door. Stuffing newspaper into the gap seems to discourage her a little but the basic behaviour pattern remains. And then she found the rolled up foam mattress cover that we use to make the floor more comfortable for guests. Imagine, if you will, taking a weed wacker to a bananna cream pie. The little long rat had an estatic grin for days. @#*[log in to unmask] Also, about the wild ones, the little beasties who, for whatever reason, resist domestication. One lab animal handbook suggests doping them with diazapram (sp.? anyhow, it's identical to valium) and then cuddling them. Eventually they seem to get a contact high from humans (They link getting stoned to being handled) Ha! Pavlov's potheads! tot ziens, Mac and bucky [Posted in FML issue 1002]