Ferret busts in California depend on a lot of factors. You have to remember that California is bigger then many countries, and offical attitudes towards ferrets can vary from location to location depending on the whims of local animal control, district attornies, and regional branches of the DFG. Some areas of California seem to have local or state officals who just plain hate ferrets or ferret owners, and will go out of their way to not only find ferrets, but to seek heavy fines for owners. In an other area local officals might not care, and state officals might have other fish to fry. One thing to remember is to keep track of local and state officals (DA's, judges, sheriffs, etc.) who are anti-ferret, since odds are these people will either run for public office or be appointed to an office that requires legislative approval. That is your chance to speak out aginst this person for wasting tax dollars on ferret hunts. Although the general public might not care about the rights of ferret owners, they may not approve of limited law enforcement dollars being used against ferret owners by people leading agencies not directly linked to animal law. Judges are often subject to periodic voter approval, and in off year voting turn out can be very low, and even a small oppsition group could cause problems or force a candidate to send large sums of money. If you are afraid of retaliation from speaking out against anti-ferret officals, then find another issue where people oppose them that person, and offer your support. An offical petty enough to go after ferret owners is petty enough to annoy other people for other reason. Personally I've had little problem with having my ferrtet in California until just recently. Twice I was verbally harassed by animal rights fanatics (who seem to believe that killing ferrets is less cruel then living with them). Recently a neighbor of mine threaten to turn me in to animal control after I opposed her attempts to force a local business to close early (the women is considered a neighborhood gagdfly). The rest of neighbors (mainly dog owners) rallied to my aid, and made it quite clear to her that she was considered way out of line. People called her up and chewed her out. I told my neighbors that I gave my ferret away, while I modified my windows so people can't see in. My neighbor has found that suddenly almost no one will speak to her. I have found that dog owners are generally good allies against nasty neighbors, since the sort person who will harass a ferret owner is likely to also harass dog owners, and most dog owners know what how it is to be treated like a 2nd class citizen because of their choice in pets. Brad [Posted in FML issue 1692]