Dear Carol-Anne and fellow FML-ers, Having only seen the Ferrets USA briefly while at a show, I'd like to mention that it is not "over 100 pages" (88 springs to mind - I'm not sure why the page number on the last page doesn't make that obvious). As for ads being grouped with relevant articles, you're quite right. The ad for wood chips for ferret cages was right next to the article about why wood chips are good for ferrets. Any ferret folks out there care to thank Fancy for giving pet shops & new ferret owners this valuable information? Of course, this kind of mistake is considered excusable by you since Ferrets USA is published by a multi-million dollar company which produces over 20 magazines and has the resources to know better. In fact, they even managed to get an editor to write about how she doesn't own and will not own a ferret since she lives in California. Fancy Publications is proud to be ignorant of the ferret and is content to not help support ferret legalization in their own home state (despite their vast financial resources). Modern Ferret is published by TWO ferret owners and their ferrets in an attempt to do good for ferrets. We have worked actively to support ferrets in every way we can, from spending our weekends holding ferret education days at pet stores to donating resources to legalization efforts in CA and MASS, to donating copies of the magazine to shelters and ferret clubs so they can sell them to help support themselves. When ferret owners call us with questions or medical emergencies we always try to help them - no matter how late it is or how tired we are. We still work at any odd jobs we can to help keep putting money into the magazine so that it can grow. So far we have only achieved 48 pages of glossy magazine with some color throughout, but we are working to make each issue better than the last. It has been rather disappointing that despite our support for the ferret community, we seem to keep finding ferret organizations that castigate us and work actively against us. I suppose these organizations each feel that they have the only "official" publication for ferrets and thus we are evil usurpers instead of ferret lovers. Ferrets need a publication that depicts them as wonderful pets that are as lovable and popular as cats, dogs, birds, etc. if ferrets are to eventually be regarded by the public at large as legitimate pets with the same rights as cats, dogs, birds, etc. (Rights as in quarantine in a bite incident instead of kill-and-test, etc.) I think Modern Ferret is developing into such a publication, although it may take us a while before we can find like-minded ferret people to help us grow beyond our present limits of what the two of us can do (everything from photography, to writing, to layout, to scanning, to pre-press, to advertising, to promotion, to distribution, to servicing subscriptions, to licking the envelopes and putting stamps on them). We're creating a magazine that to the best of our ability will address the concerns we've had as ferret owners without publishing incorrect or misleading information. I suspect that unless some other ferret owner has the money and determination to make a go of a ferret magazine, anything else that's done for ferrets will wind up being done by people proud to say they've never owned a ferret. Even aside from my personal involvement, I'd like to see at least one magazine out there for ferrets be published by people who actually care about ferrets. I think that's what we're doing. If you don't like Modern Ferret that's fine. But we're going to keep working on it because Sabrina, Ralph, Marshmallow, and Knuks want us to. -- Eric Shefferman [Posted in FML issue 1394]