Michael Curry: Is anyone in your area spraying / using pesticides / herbicides / aerial or ground dispersed fertilizers / hormones or other chemicals??? Is the government / military doing any exercises or have any property nearby where they might be testing gases / powders / sprays? Is there a legal or illegal dump site nearby? Anything "upstream" or able to infiltrate your groundwater system? I hate to add this, but ... is there anything nuclear ... a plant, a dumpsite, that the government may not be telling you the truth about? Is there an incineration site which burns trash and waste? Is there a manufacturing plant which may have undesireable waste products it puts into the air / water / soil? One thing you can check which would tell you if it's environmental. Are other animals -- birds (chickens, pets like canaries), small rodents (pet mice or gerbils, hamsters) etc. --- having similar problems? Are there still field mice and resident songbirds (not migratory birds, year-round residents)? This would be a big clue that there is something contaminating the area. These are the things that come to my mind when you speak of so many ferrets dying all at once. Any genetic or infectious disease (unless *incredibly* virulent) would cause deaths over many hours or days. This sounds much more like some environmental cause, either in the air (fastest dispersal) water, soil or contaminating people's clothes, the food, the buildings. If you think this can't happen, go to your library and check out the book "Minamata" -- a heart-rending picture book about what a manufacturing plant did in Minamata Bay, Japan, and how the government failed to respond, leaving the fisherpeople of Minamata with twisted, helpless, deformed, retarded children. We have yet to count the full costs of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Love Canal, or the Exxon Valdez. The ferrets could be like the canaries miners used to take into deep mines to warn them when the air was going bad or when pockets of deadly but unscented gases began to leak into the mine. The canaries would stop singing and die. Any time this many animals are this sick this quickly, I would investigate the environment before people began to sicken also. Good luck, let us know if you find any answers. JodyLee Estrada Duek 520/626-2203 Faculty Development Specialist 520/626-6707 (message) Division of Academic Resources 520/626-4879 (fax) University of Arizona College of Medicine 1501 N. Campbell Avenue Tucson, Arizona 85724 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * \|/\|/ \|/ \|/\|/ \|/ \|/ \|/\|/ \|/ \|/\|/ \|/ \|/ [Posted in FML issue 1674]