Bob, I would GREATLY enjoy seeing your osteological stuff. Though I left the field years ago when a tropical ( from Suriname) neurological disease cut short my studies I still love it and strongly miss it, but I am not with a school and had to drop my last journal when the price quintupaled. Ah, now I will probably be flamed by those who think that their own areas advance but others are still back in the Teddy Roosevelt era. Okay, before you huff consider that the comparative osteology, dentition, and fossil collection I helped put together as a student curator contained NO animals sacrificed for the sake of the collection, and that was between 20 to 15 years ago. Yes, we accepted animals which had already died in the studies of others, but multiple uses of an animal save lives. We had more critters which had been in large zoos (where the breeding populations are carefully maintained, and from which come animals that have been used in reinstatement programs when habitat can be saved) and which died of natural causes, and many more were the times I lost lunch salvaging road kills so that others could learn, and that knowledge might save critters. I.E., lay off Bob. Having people here with expert backgrounds can only help your own pets, and if you think a major university puts together teaching collections by killing you are really missing the mark. I realize there are places which print tripe asserting that no progress has been made away from the Teddy format, but these places would probably also print garbage about domestic ferrets (In fact, one HAS -- regularly -- by insisting that they are wild.), and about your own field if it was assumed a danger. Be GLAD there are experts here like Bob, Bruce, and others. Everyone with sense does things to help the planet and other species as well as their own. Some, like Steve, find they cope well with being vegetarians while others of us just keep our flesh intake down. Many of us decided to not have kids, but instead help the children of others, others will not dissect a critter, some of us have only one car (small and efficient) and use that as little as possible. No one can do it all, and many areas are nebulous -- for example the dissections value depends on what that knowledge is used for and what is dissected (like me, for instance, since I AM a cadaver donor). To flame Bob for exaggerated aspects of his profession is not logical, nor accurate, nor reasonable if you also have parts of your life which MIGHT contribute to the woes of the world. Since I have never met anyone with the answers to all conundra, I suspect you must have a few violations. Next time, write something but hold it at home till you calm down. That works. Believe me, I am human (enough) so have to do that myself regularly. (Yes, I realize this was somewhat off-topic, but we have some people here who are great fonts on information and having them slammed (That verb dates me.) because of a misconception might one day lose us someone less patient than B.; we do not need such a loss.) Nutrient intake in the wild vs. that in captivity: In the wild (which has problems of its own resulting in much early mortality -- i.e., if you are over your late 30s - early 40s, and your ferrets over 3 you should be grateful for the extra time) it is useful to adore the flavors/feels of nutrients which are found only rarely out of captivity/civilization or which require that a population of animals take energy expensive detours/efforts to acquire them. In current humans we have such craved items which were hard to acquire in most of our past (salt, fats, flesh protein, sucrose, etc.) readily available, and often given to our young on a regular basis in infancy and toddlerhood. It may be that either availability or early misuse alone, or both together can contribute to (mitigated by other factors such as genetics) the conditions which lead to people having dangerous diets. If we provide certain nutrients in amounts beyond those they are needed in, especially during years when food preferences are being formed can we create abuse in our pets which could get as bad as human misuse if they controlled their own diets? It is certainly possible. On the other hand, I am not crazy about giving critters recognizable meat or eggs, especially in the raw forms, not only because of possible poisoning, but because, if they ever did get into a situation where a carcass was present I would not want them to easily recognize it as potential food. As a result, I prefer to cook and puree such items with other foodstuffs. I talk too much. -- Sukie (Steve as hubby, Meltdown, Ruffle, 'Chopper, Spot, Meeteetse, and Warp) [Posted in FML issue 1404]