Q:"Why is my cat a better hunter than my ferret?" A: Because the cat comes in vison-enhanced models while the ferret only comes in olfactory stock versions. If you substituted polecats for ferrets, I don't think cats are better hunters, per se. The family of weasels is one of the oldest group of carnivores on the planet, they are clearly more diverse than the cats, and probably can be considered as or more successful. I think the big difference is in hunting methods between the cats and the weasels. Before you can catch prey, you have to first detect it. The polecat or ferret does that by wandering around, poking it's nose into every nook and cranny it can find. If it detects prey--by smell--then it either captures it in a short sprint, follows it into a burrow, or digs the food out with carpet-rendering claws. The cat, on the other hand, uses those wonderful eyes to first visually locate prey, then to guide it towards the capture. Sure, the cat can use smell just as the polecat or ferret can use their eyes, but clearly the polecat or ferret has a far greater dependence on their sense of small than the cat, just as the cat has a far greater dependence on their vision compared to the ferret. Even so, I think I would give the nod to the ferret *except* for one little complication; cats don't visually imprint on prey, but ferrets do smell imprint on prey. Any animal the right size and moving the right speed will set off the cat's hunting radar, and it sets out to kill it for consumption. While ferrets may react with a hunting instinct to small objects moving at specific speeds away from them, they may not recognize it as a food item. Instead, they may capture or kill the prey, but not recognize it as food and it either escapes or is left uneaten. Ferrets will only eat those animals that *smell* like food, which is a remarkably limited choice if they eat nothing but kibble, and a major reason they have such a limited life-span when lost or abandoned in the woods. One final comment about feral cats. There is a lot of paper devoted to the effects of feral ferrets on the ecology of New Zealand, but not nearly as much to feral cats. Personally, I think there are four reasons for this, (although local scientists may protest). First, people are culturally programmed to interpret one animal as "bad" and another as "good." For example, wolves are bad because they eat sheep, but dogs (which are domesticated wolves) are good because they bark and warn of danger, even though they also eat sheep. This enculturation extends to scientists who cannot look past the "feral" aspect and wrongly assume the ferret was not as mush domesticated as man's best friend, even though there are hundreds of reports that decry the destructive nature of feral dogs. Ferrets may be seen as bad because they were used by poachers to hunt rabbit, or because they can be little nippers if not properly trained. So ferrets are studied because they are seen as bad animals of obvious destructiveness. Second, people are accustomed to seeing stray cats and dogs about, and always assume they are locally owned if spotted. If a ferret is spotted, they immediately assume they are feral. I have come up against this problem in dealing with the "feral San Juan Island" ferret myth. Because people have "heard" there are feral ferrets on the islands, a spotted ferret is interpreted as being feral, even though it may be a lost pet and dying of starvation. A stray dog or cat is almost always seen as a pet out for a walk. Third, feral ferrets are easy to study compared to feral cats. Ferrets are easy to catch, they pretty much stay on the ground, and they like to live around human habitations. Feral cats use the trees for shelter, are much harder to capture, and have a healthy fear of people. Its so much easier to study the ferret, so more study gets done. Finally, scientists support themselves through grants, and it is much easier to get money to study the horrible "feral ferret" problem than the "feral cat/dog" problem, which many people can't recognize as a problem at all. The same thing can be said about government agencies, who justify their budgets based on the problems they fight. I am convinced the reason the CaCa Fishing Gestapo refuses to free the ferret is because they are afraid of losing money from the legislature. After all, convincing the powers that be that ferrets are a threat, getting money to fight them, and occasionally arresting the poor housewife is a good way to fund office showers and expense accounts. They are certainly not using the money to catch feral ferrets, because there are none, either in CaCa Land or the rest of the New World. Someone asked me if I found a CaCa Fishing Gestapo agent burning, would I pee on them to put it out? I said no, because I would be afraid it might taint the taste of the marshmellows. Bob C and 22 MO Weesel Waskels [Posted in FML issue 2416]