To Mish and Hal: Don't be duped by half-truths pasted together to justify a policy that actively seeks to make ferret ownership illegal. Indeed, "truthful" is hardly the word I would use to describe the HSUS statement, with its inaccuracies about rabies and "nocturnal habits" and its duplicitous dancing around the question whether and to what extent it will oppose ferret ownership in the future. You will also note that Irwin completely ignored the fundamental question of whether Rachel Lamb's comments on CBS were in accord with HSUS policy (effectively giving her an endorsement); the misrepresentations Rachel made about the danger escaped ferrets pose to the "ecology"; and the hypocrisy of implying that ferret bites pose a greater danger to the community than dog bites. I agree it is not strictly untrue that ferrets take a "special kind of person": what makes this part of the HSUS position so awful is the fact that it assumes or implies that "anyone" could take care of a dog or cat or any other companion animal--but members of the general public should not have the right to decide whether to have a ferret as a pet. Make no mistake, the language in the Irwin letter stating HSUS "will continue to lend our support or opposition to legislative initiatives that may include language pertaining to the keeping of ferrets as pets" means that they WILL intervene to restrict, hamper, obstruct, and if possible delegalize ferret ownership "if anyone asks their opinion"--anyone, for example, such as California Fish & Game. The disclaimer that HSUS is not anti-ferret is a bald lie. If the HSUS position were consistent, they would simply oppose sale of any pets in pet stores, and leave it at that, since it is primarily at pet stores that "throwaway pets" of any species are acquired, as impulse purchases. In reality, the ferret community has a very good record of taking care of abandoned fuzzies, whereas god knows how many tens of millions of dogs and cats are being euthanized each year--and mostly in HSUS charnel houses. To Danny: Good for you for firing off your letter. Your points were right on, especially: >The other thing I though really added fuel to the fire was their "government knows what's best for me" attitude by supporting FFZs.< To Judi: More power to you. HSUS doesn't deserve a dime from anyone that values the lives of ferrets--how many more are going to be euthanized this year in California because they helped defeat the legalization bill? My interviews with dozens of California animal control officers at the 1994 HSUS animal care expo in San Diego indicated that the great majority had never heard of the "ship them out of state" option, and assumed they had no choice but to put them down. Howard [Posted in FML issue 1234]