> ferrets. We are not advising you one way or another concerning its use, as For most states such a statement would amount to: We want you to vaccinate for rabies, but we will probably ignore such a prior vaccination in a bite incident. HOWEVER, Dr. Sorhage of New Jersey epidemiolgy did tell me that vaccination records several years in a row in combination with reasonable surety of indoor pet plus bitee agreeable MIGHT save the ferret in a bite incident in NJ. Maybe. > pertaining to the possession of ferrets. FERRETS MUST BE KEPT IN SUCH A WAY > AS TO PREVENT ESCAPE OR INJURY TO THE PUBLIC. Failure to adhere to the > regulations, which were designed to protect the animal, the environment and I think I may call them and ask the following questions. 1. Regarding protection of the environment: You are trying to protect the environment then, from escaped ferrets. Do you have ANY feral populations of ferrets in New Jersey? No? Then what is the problem? Yes? Please send me written documentation regarding where they are along with YOUR signature. [every state has already agreed in writing that there are NO feral ferrets in their state!] > the regulations could also result in pressure to ban the possession of > ferrets, brought about by groups concerned with the public's welfare. 2. Regarding protection of the public: When you compare with cat and dog bites, are ferret bites per animal more or less favorable? Oh? You don't know the number of ferrets, so you can't come up with a ratio? [that's the usual move] How then, can you say that ferret stats are worse than cat and dog stats? If they aren't worse, then WHY AREN'T YOU CALLING TO BAN CATS AND DOGS?? If you have armchair ideas that the ratio of ferret bites per animal IS worse than cat and dog bites per animal, then we'll go with that. Since we know the number of dogs, number of dog bites reported, and number of ferret bites reported, we can come up with the maximum number of ferrets there must be for your ratio to be correct. Again, will you be willing to agree in writing that there are no more than x ferrets? For example, say you think that ferrets are TWICE as bad as dogs for bite incidents (not taking into account dogs are bigger and more likely to cause serious injury). Then, 2 * num dogs/num dog bites reported = num ferrets/num ferret bites reported calling the unknown number of ferrets x, and using year of 1988 stats, we get: 2 * 50,000,000/44,000 = x/12 Solve for x and you get x = 27272.7 (number of ferrets) as the maximum number of ferrets. So, if you think ferrets are twice as bad as dogs for bites, you'll agree that the maximum number of ferrets is 27272 nationwide in 1988. Ridiculous. Everyone knows there were and are more ferrets than that. [the usual move is to say people don't report ferret bites fully, because they fear persecution. In that case the actual number of ferret bites which "should have been" reported is 2640 (assuming there were 3,000,000 ferrets), so people must actually report only 1 out of every 220 serious ferret bite cases. I think that people report at least more accurately than that, but even if they don't then ferrets would be only as bad as dogs, so why persecute them over dogs??] This steams me. Todd Cromwell Dors (mi novia) and Seldon (el cazador de suen~o) [Posted in FML issue 1197]