Pet Project : Ferret Owners Campaign to Legalize Ownership of the Furry Animals

SAN DIEGO —  A political revolution must begin with a single shot, and so the lovers of domestic ferrets took to the street last week to seek redress of their grievance.

An estimated 100,000 households in California keep ferrets in defiance of state laws making it a misdemeanor to harbor, house or otherwise provide succor to the furry animals. Now, thanks to the diligence of two local Libertarian Party leaders, San Diego has become a nest of ferret activism.

Libertarian Pat Wright, who makes a living in the book publishing trade, felt so strongly that he ran for the Assembly last year on a free-the-ferrets platform against incumbent Mike Gotch (D-San Diego). Wright got 3% of the vote.

Not easily discouraged, Wright has continued searching for a politician to sponsor a bill to repeal the anti-ferret laws, which he says are based on the mistaken assumption that ferrets are wild animals and thus a danger to birds, livestock, crops and children.

Last week, Wright staged a demonstration outside the San Diego office of Sen. Lucy Killea (I-San Diego) in hopes of persuading her to join the pro-ferret movement. Wright and fellow Libertarian John Wallner organized about 50 ferret owners into a noisy, orderly and media-genic event.

Killea was in Sacramento during the protest, but an aide promised she would study the issue. “Lucy is not philosophically opposed to ferrets,” Mike Nelson said.

“All we want is to stay home and take care of our ferrets without being harassed by the Fish and Game Department and their neo-Nazi tactics of seizing ferrets,” said Wallner, a computer engineer, law student and unsuccessful congressional candidate last year.

Although ferret seizures are rare, talk of seizures is continuous in the ferret community. “We live in a climate of fear,” Wright said.

Fish and Game hears the clamor but is unmoved, even by the fact that ferrets are legal in 46 states. Inquiring reporters are given information about ferret bites and ferrets as a threat.

Fish and Game, the Department of Health Services, and the Department of Food and Agriculture are foursquare against ferrets. They successfully banded together in 1986 to get California law toughened to include male ferrets, along with the female ferrets already banned by a 1932 law.

The ferret demonstrators spoke lovingly of their pets, which are cousins of the weasel and the skunk and rarely grow bigger than six pounds and 24 inches.

“Ferrets were domesticated 500 years before the cat,” said a public employee who gave his name only as Frank. “They’re the perfect pets for people who live in condos or apartments.”

W.G. Johnson, a college student and strength coach for athletes, said his albino ferret White Fang (named for the Soupy Sales character) kept him from going stir crazy while he was recuperating from back surgery.

“He’s a tremendous companion,” Johnson said. “He would curl up on my chest and go to sleep for hours. No way am I going to let Fish and Game take him away.”

Killea’s response to the pro-ferret forces was more hospitable than that of some other legislators.

Sen. David G. Kelley, a Republican who represents parts of Riverside, Imperial and San Diego counties, turned Wright down flat and wrote, “Studies have documented many cases in which pet ferrets bit and seriously injured human infants and young children. At least one of the attacks was fatal.”

Ferret lovers have heard this before and they respond by citing studies (like one in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.) showing that ferret bites, on a per-animal basis, are less frequent than cat bites or dog bites.

Much of the dispute is zoological.

Wildlife and agriculture officials are afraid that ferrets will get loose and start feral colonies that will survive by marauding. But the Colorado-based Office of Information for the Ferret Unity and Registration Organization (FURO) says the wildness has long ago been bred out of ferrets and that lost ferrets are no threat to anybody and quickly starve to death.

Wright and Wallner promise to continue their political agitation and their search for a legislative sponsor, in conjunction with a ferret owners association in Northern California. Wright was asked whether repeal of anti-ferret laws will have to wait until a Libertarian takeover in Sacramento.

“I don’t want to wait that long,” he said.