Ferrets and the great pet debate

By WARREN GAMBLE

In the interests of fairness to ferrets I have to disclose that my first impression of the furry creatures now in the firing line was not good.

At a friend of a friend's farm in the Waikato I gingerly approached a metal cage flowing with angry fur.

The four ferrets rampaging inside looked like they would sooner snip your fingers off than look at you, not that I gave them the chance.

A few days later I learned the wild ferrets, kept for rabbiting, had escaped into the countryside. I feared for the animals in their sharp-clawed path.

Aha, pet ferret owners will say, pouncing on the imagery - claws, teeth, destruction - you are talking about a different kettle of ferrets.

They say comparing the pet ferret to the feral ferret is like comparing a pet border collie to a dog/wolf hybrid.

Pet ferrets have been around for ages. Supporters say there is a debate whether they were domesticated by the ancient Egyptians or in ancient Rome.

Queen Victoria was amused by royal ferret companions and Mongol leader Genghis Khan used them for hunting.

The World Ferret Union website claims domesticated ferrets were mated with European polecats when they were introduced to New Zealand in the 1880s to give them the wild edge needed to tackle the country's rabbit problem.

Scientist Carolyn King, who has researched and written about the country's immigrant killers, says she has not heard the story, but could not rule it out.

Whatever the truth, this week I met my first pet ferret. At Emma Clegg's West Auckland home I held young Willie, a brown ferret the size of a small cat or a large, elongated rat.

Despite my not being fond of large, elongated rats Willie lay docilely in my arms at first. He then started to squirm and wriggle, uncomfortable with a stranger, Emma says.

His clipped claws could still manage a decent scratch if he wanted to. He didn't. Close up he had a faint but not offensive musky smell. He had been descented, an operation that removes the scent glands, so there was no risk of a "bomb", a skunk-like odour ferrets release when they are threatened.

I put him down and he hopped into the bath to play.

Emma Clegg has nine ferrets, including an albino one with pink eyes. They have a large multi-level cage in the corner of the bathroom where they sleep for up to 18 hours a day. Her three young children play with them like kittens, and they have harnesses and leashes for walks around the neighbourhood.

Emma Clegg runs a ferret rescue service in Auckland for the New Zealand Ferret Association, one of two ferret fanciers clubs.

Five years ago when she saw her first pet ferret being walked by its owner around Western Springs park, she was not impressed. She was not thrilled when her husband later bought one, but she quickly became a convert.

"They are endlessly entertaining to watch. They jump high, land on all fours and spin around. They roll around the floor, and make funny noises.

"They lick your feet and it tickles. They are just absolutely crazy."

The other club, the New Zealand Ferret Protection and Welfare Society, known as Paws, has its own website. On it you can join discussion groups on all manner of ferret topics including whether Australian or New Zealand ferrets are better, you can look at photographs of past ferret frolics - social events where owners and ferrets meet - and you can read the society's Warm Fuzzies magazine.

You can read ferret poems and even post messages for ferrets which have passed on to greener pastures. One says: "You enriched our lives and converted everyone you had contact with.

"You were a good ferret, the best so far, you never bit or nipped anybody."

It illustrates the passion ferret owners have for their pets - a bond strengthened it seems in proportion to the widespread public dislike and bad press.

"There's no middle of the road for ferrets," says Emma Clegg.

"With dogs I know people who love them or hate them or just say it's a dog.

"Unfortunately, with ferrets people for some reason either totally love them or totally hate them."

One good reason, say conservationists, is that ferrets, including pets which are deliberately released or escape, kill threatened native species.

The Great Barrier Island incident on January 13 highlighted their concerns.

A couple took their five pet ferrets cruising on their yacht in the Hauraki Gulf. Anchoring off the Barrier in Smokehouse Bay they allegedly took their pets for a walk, on leashes, along the beach. Another boatowner saw them and raised the alarm with the Department of Conservation. Area manager Dale Tawa got the call, jumped in his boat and boarded the yacht to confront the owners.

"They were probably just as surprised and shocked as we were," he says. "I find it a wee bit surprising that they had no idea the whole of the Hauraki Gulf was a controlled area."

Great Barrier is free of major introduced predators, and home to some of the country's rarest birds including the endangered brown teal.

Forest and Bird, calling for a ban on pet ferrets this week, says even if one desexed ferret got loose it could do a lot of damage to the birdlife.

The Auckland Regional Council is considering prosecuting the ferret owners under the Biosecurity Act, which carries a potentially large fine, or the Wildlife Act's 1985 regulations.

Those regulations were brought in to control the commercial farming of ferrets for a subsequently short-lived fur export industry in the mid-1980s. When the industry collapsed some ferrets were released into the wild, others became pets.

The regulations allow people to own three ferrets as pets without a licence. Any more requires an annually renewed permit from the Department of Conservation.

The regulations also prohibit ferrets being taken to offshore islands.

Pet ferrets became fashionable about 1997 when the Asian financial crisis forced breeders to switch to the local market, and pet shops began to stock them.

The fad has waned in recent years with pet numbers now estimated between 500 and 3000.

The two clubs have also reduced their activities, but Paws plans another frolic next month on Valentine's Day. Both organisations are upset that the Great Barrier Island episode has tarnished the responsible attitudes they encourage and stirred up another round of ferret bashing.

Barbara Choat, the president of Paws, says the owners involved, particularly if they belonged to a club, should have known that islands were no-go areas, despite the lack of signs.

She says ferrets are vilified as killing machines of native species, while cats and dogs get away with murder.

Barbara Choat says there is no evidence that escaped pet ferrets survive in the wild to kill native species.

She says the domesticated animals, the majority of which are desexed, would not survive long if they escaped because they were reared on kitten biscuits and other food and could not fend for themselves. They also had poor eyesight and could not climb, unlike stoats, their close relations, which prey on a wider range of native birds.

There have been no studies on the impact of escaped pet ferrets. But a Department of Conservation predator ecologist, Craig Gillies, says while many pets would probably die in the wild, some will adapt.

"The bottom line is pet ferrets are a risk, particularly when people live near areas with sensitive species."

Barbara Choat describes ferrets as "kittens that never grow up".

"They sleep, wake, feed, play and play some more."

In response to my appeal on the Paws website, owner Sheena Clowes wrote an impassioned defence of ferrets.

"Just as the dog is the only domesticated member of the canine species, the domesticated cat is the only domesticated member of the feline family so the domestic ferret is the only member of the mustelid species [which includes stoats, weasels, otters, wolverines and skunks].

"I wouldn't want a jackal wandering round my garden, I wouldn't want a leopard sitting in a tree waiting for me to come home and I wouldn't want a wolverine under my bed. Dog in the garden, cat in the tree and ferret under the bed is a totally different matter."

She says her neighbour's cats regularly caught fantails and tui, but her ferrets were allowed out only at the end of a leash and harness.

There was debate about the damage caused to native wildlife by colonies of feral cats, but the issue was not pursued politically because cats had powerful supporters and lobbyists.

Ferrets, she says, are an easy target.

nzherald.co.nz/environment