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Photo by Dai Sugano
Ferret Liberation
Assemblyman Jim Cunneen moves to liberate outlaw ferrets
By Jessica Lyons
Sarah speaks in code over the phone. Snoopy state officials may have tapped her line. The state says she is a criminal. But activists say she's a '90s freedom fighter. She's leery when it comes to talking about her hobby.
So, who's your supplier? I ask.
Sarah says she smuggles across state lines.
What have you got in your possession right now?
That's a touchy subject. Undercover officers have been infiltrating meetings, she says.
Sarah and husband, Gregor, both using pseudonyms, have been underground for about 10 years now. If discovered, the duo could face jail time and be slapped with a fine. Damn the consequences, the two say, they are doing the right thing.
Sarah agrees to meet. We settle on a neutral location: Willow Glen Elementary playground at dusk. No cops, no wires. Just me and my notebook. Sarah and Greg will be waiting in the parking lot.
They'll bring the ferrets with them.
Sarah and Gregor are among hundreds of thousands of illegal ferret owners in California--some estimates reach a half-million. This is the only state other than Hawaii that bans the animals as pets. Existing legislation--a 66-year-old state law--says possessing a ferret is a misdemeanor, now punishable by up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine. For Sarah and Gregor, that's a chance they are willing to take.
The couple has taken extreme measures to smuggle these pets into their homes--even drugging one and carrying it in a coat sleeve past airport security in Arizona--and they're not about to turn them over to the law.
Urma, a Cupertino ferret enthusiast, fears that her furry friend, Awto Bahn Spawn, may not live long enough to become a legal alien in California.
"You get so emotionally attached to them," she says. That's why she continues to fight for ferret freedom.
Sarah and Gregor's truck sticks out in the elementary school parking lot. It's the one with a "C'mon California, Legalize Ferrets!" sticker on the rear window, and a pet-carrying case in the truck bed. Six pairs of black, beady eyes stare out from behind the metal cage door. The couple only brought half of their brood today. Six more of the little weasel-like critters are waiting at home.
The coast is clear, so Gregor carries the furry fugitives over to the playground. Sarah makes the introductions. "This is Romeo, Sebastian, Kyla, Duke and Pooka," she says, matching ferrets with names, as they bury themselves in bark dust, tangle leashes and climb over Gregor and each other on the playground.
Romeo, a 2-year-old who likes to give kisses, finds my bag and digs his way to the bottom before Sarah can grab him.
"They do get spanked," she says. "But they are all wonderful. They're very curious, they want to explore everything and they love to play. I grew up with dogs and cats, and these guys are the best of both worlds. They are cat-box trained but they are loyal like dogs.
"We want this bill to be passed."
Limited Legalization
Sarah is talking about a proposed state law authored by Assemblyman Jim Cunneen, who serves a portion of Sunnyvale.
The bill, which won approval from the State Assembly last month in a vote of 73 to 6, would legalize the possession of ferrets, provided they receive rabies shots and are spayed or neutered, and only if they were already somebody's pet by April 20, 1999. It would also commission a study of the animals to determine whether ferrets are a wild or domesticated animal.
"I think this is a modest step," Cunneen says. "It's an important step to take. I don't own a ferret, but my only experiences with them have been positive. I do know a number of people who do, and they ought not live in fear of prosecution when ferrets are legal in 48 other states."
Previous attempts to legalize the domesticated European polecat have failed. The last push--a bill in 1997--ended up as roadkill in a Senate committee. Cunneen, however, believes his bill may be the one to decriminalize California's littlest outlaws.
"I'm trying to find some common ground between the extremists at the [state] Department of Fish and Game who label the ferret as a wild animal, and those ferret owners who would like to have ferrets legalized in every way. Ferrets are already here in big numbers, and yet the Department of Fish and Game wants to pretend they're not. What I'm trying to do is say if we can't get an agreement there, at least we can agree to grandfather-in existing ferret owners."
To say ferrets do not exist in California is like denying the existence of Spam in supermarkets. In an informal survey of 12 local pet stores, 10--including mega-stores PETCO, PetsMart and Premium Pet--acknowledged selling ferret food and supplies, ranging from tiny harnesses to fleece-lined sleeping hammocks to ferret deodorizer. And unlike marijuana paraphernalia sold in shops like Paramount Imports as "tobacco bongs," ferret goods are sold under pictures of cute little ferrets.
Veterinary treatment for the four-legged fugitives is widely and openly available, too.
"If you talk to most vets, they may not confess it, but they probably treat ferrets," says Dr. Faye Umeda. "I have not practiced in a veterinary practice that hasn't treated ferrets, and I've been in 10 practices over 21 years as a vet in the Valley."
Bascom Animal Hospital's Dr. Mark Madden, well-known as a ferret-friendly vet, says he's been treating ferrets for 20 years.
"I don't feel there is any reason for them not to be legal," he says. "They don't pose a threat to anyone, they're not wild animals, and they make very good pets. They march to a different drummer."
Photo by Dai Sugano
Bump in the Road
The state does not take such an amiable view of ferrets. Citing dangers to the environment and small children, the California Department of Fish and Game has been a long-standing roadblock on the path to legalization.
"We've long been adamantly opposed to ferret legalization because of the risk ferrets pose to wildlife and public safety," says Ronald Jurek, the department's wildlife biologist.
The department says the critters are dangerous, and that if they are legalized in California it's only a matter of time before ferrets go feral and become a threat to wild birds and small mammals.
"They're a predator, like a dog or a cat, and as such, they pose a threat to native wildlife," says Jurek, who estimates the department confiscates about 12 illegal ferrets each year. "We already have a tremendous problem with these [feral dogs and cats] and we don't want to see that happen with ferrets."
According to the Department's most recent study--a domestic ferret questionnaire sent out to wildlife agencies in the 48 states where ferret ownership is legal--not one has documented a case of ferrets breeding in the wild. Three states (Arkansas, New Mexico and Washington) say they "suspect" feral breeding ferrets existed in the past, but none of the wildlife agencies suspect any wild breeding ferrets now exist.
Jurek says the survey's wrong.
"The ferret is on the list of North American breeding animals," he says. "So it's hard for us to understand how they have not existed in the wild." In the wild, he says, these house-broken carpet sharks are nocturnal animals that live alone, making them difficult to track.
"Ferrets live individually. People talk about ferret colonies--there is no such thing as a feral ferret colony. So it would be very difficult to know if there were any ferrets in the wild."
Weaseling to Sacramento
Ferrets activists insist that the feral ferret is a myth.
"There aren't any," says Jeanne Carley, co-founder of Californians for Ferret Legalization. In states where ferrets are legal, they must be spayed or neutered before they are sold in pet stores. Carley points out that even without the law, all ferret-owners get their pets "fixed." If left unaltered, males will emit a strong, skunk-like scent. Unaltered female ferrets in heat typically die within a year if not "spayed or laid" say vets.
"There are no domestic ferrets living ferally," Carley says. "It is a red herring. This issue is nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Cats go feral, dogs go feral, horses, goats, these are all domesticated animals that all go feral. The sad fact--the irony, really--is that nowhere in the U.S. have ferrets survived in the wild."
Carley has dedicated the last five years of her life to fighting what she calls a "misinformation campaign" by the Department of Fish and Wildlife. She organizes a database of 250,000 ferret supporters in the state, and lobbies the state legislature to decriminalize ferret owners, writing letters and sending faxes supporting ferret rights. Her web site, www.ferretnews.org, features ferret news updates and links to the ferret-friendly sites. One photo depicts a frowning ferret in prison-stripes and a "WANTED" sign.
"The public knows that a domesticated pet doesn't belong in the hands of a wildlife agency," she says. "People know in their hearts and minds that the law is wrong."
Carley herself got trapped in the weasel web after baby sitting a friend's ferret in 1988.
"I just found them to be delightful, very intelligent, very nice little creatures," she says. "I started asking, 'Why can't I have one?' The more I looked into it, the more I realized that there had been a very serious injustice here in California."
So she took to the streets. Carley also runs rescue operations, housing the animals that have been turned over to the Department of Fish and Game or to local animal shelters. More than 40 of these ferret half-way houses exist in California. Ferret rescuers feed the often sick or injured animals, nurse them back to health and find them a good, out-of-state home.
Shelly, who requested that only her first name be used, is another ferret-friendly South Bay individual. She says she normally rescues about 20 ferrets a year, and often pays for vet visits and expensive surgeries for the delicate critters out of her own pocket. Shelly estimates that her care-giving costs run about $2,000 a year.
"I do it for the love of the animal," she explains. "I hope they will be legal soon. I have a cat, but I'm not really a cat person. Ferrets are happy all the time, they're playful, they're very smart. These animals bring me joy."
Photo by Dai Sugano
Mega stores like Premium Pet and PETCO sell ferret food and supplies, despite the fact the animals are illegal. The state confiscates about 12 ferrets each year.
Ferret Fever
Today, Shelly's Cupertino home is vacant of any four-legged boarders. Six furry visitors, however, have stopped in to play with the cat, Bump.
"It's kind of addictive," says the ferrets' owner, Chuck, watching his six fuzzballs frolic around on the floor, run under cupboards, through a slinky tunnel and over Bump. "You get one, and then you watch them playing with each other and you have to get more."
But six is his limit, says Chuck, who asked that his last name not be used. "My girlfriend tolerates them, but they're not her favorite."
Chuck says he's found that his ferrets can be somewhat of a liability.
"You can't tell anyone that you own them," he says. "If you go out of town for the weekend, you need to make sure you really trust the person you leave with them. You can't just tell your neighbor. Say he has a grudge against you, so he turns your ferret over to the Department of Fish and Game."
It's the creatures' rodent-like body and intimidating jaws that give ferrets a bad rap, say supporters. But if there is going to be any fierce to-the-death battle, it's more likely to be the owners--not the pole cats. In the domesticated-pet realm, there are dog people and there are cat people, but to say there are ferret people wouldn't do them justice. Among ferret enthusiasts, loyalty to the little outlaws runs very, very deep.
"They are my babies," says Urma, speaking under a false name before realizing I am, in fact, ferret-friendly. Urma's ferret, Awto Bahn Spawn sleeps with her owner every night. Awto also likes to play with roller balls, squeaky toys and rolled-up socks. "She's trained to walk by my side like a dog, she loves to sit on my chest and cuddle, she loves to take showers," she says. "They are the greatest pets in the world."
But do the members of the California Senate Natural Resources & Wildlife Committee think so? They killed a similar bill two years ago, but Jim Cunneen says he's confident his legislation is moderate enough to win the Senate's approval. If the Senate passes the ferret-legalization bill, it may be one step toward Awto challenging Lassie for the title of man's best friend.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
