>From: Sandy Repper <[log in to unmask]> >I hear on the news that you folks in Britain have a mink problem,at least >in one town.Looked like the town was minking, under all those mustelids.I >know,what were they minking about(2 ft.).If somebody tries to give you a >ferret,make sure you say I'm minking about it,until you know it's really a >ferret.Well,I mink that's enough for now. Yeah! we've got some real nut cases over here - I don't like mink farms, I wouldn't wear a fur coat but the way that these clowns (the A.L.F.) are releasing these vicious non indigenous animals into the wild is unforgivable. People in the vicinity of these outrages have been told to keep babies and pets indoors and keep windows and door closed. One chap fishing in the New Forest, using canned dog food as bait, was attacked by 4 mink who were after the can of meat. We have been seeing some pretty horrible sights of dead mink on our TV's, either been road kills or shot. Men wearing welding gloves grabbing mink and chucking them into large plastic bins, where no doubt they were fighting with each other. I can see that the mink hounds will be busy over the next few months. The only trouble is that the clowns who have released the mink are too stupid to release just how much damage their actions will cause to our native fauna. When I was at Shackerstone attending a steam rally with my ferret road show I was chatting to boaters who were telling me that they had seen mink taking moorhen chicks whilst the poor mother moorhen was swimming around powerless to do anything about the decimation of her babies. Some friends of mine, who also run a rescue for ferrets, were recently approached by, I think it was, the Dept of the Environment, they are extremely concerned that our native water vole will be exterminated by the mink and they wanted to know if my friends could supply them with ferret scats. Apparently if the scats are placed around the entrance to the water voles undergound living quarters the mink will stay away, at least that the theory! The ferret keepers in the New Forest area will be very concerned about the release of mink - Aleutian Disease is carried by mink and a lot of ferret keepers in Wessex tend to be rather paranoid about AD. I still think that lymphoma causes more deaths in ferrets than AD ever has and therefore I refuse to go OTT about AD. Sheila Bolton Ferret Welfare & National Ferret Welfare Society Newsletter Editor http://www.btinternet.com/~sheila/ferrets.htm (Last Update 13 Sept, 1998) Waiting at Rainbow Bridge: Jill, Deanna Troi, Cameron, Carnath & Button [Posted in FML issue 2438]