Ferret Ban Has N.Y.C. Officials Biting and Owners Frothing

Owners say they make ideal pets--intelligent, fun-loving, curious and playful.

Others, including the city health department, counter that they can be capricious and dangerous.

Even Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has an opinion:

“There is something deranged about you,” he lectured one ferret fancier who had called into the mayor’s radio program.

“You should go consult a psychologist or a psychiatrist with this excessive concern [over] how you are devoting your life to weasels.”

Welcome to New York’s ferret fight, a classic case of constituency politics.

The battle here echoes the controversy in California, which also forbids ferrets as pets--but where estimates are that 500,000 of the small, furry animals live with their owners.

On Tuesday, New York ferret advocates celebrated after a sympathetic hearing this week before the City Council on a measure to overturn the ownership ban. They had found an attentive ear in Peter F. Vallone, the council’s speaker, who said the Giuliani administration would have to convince him that ferrets are dangerous.

The positive reception was achieved through grass-roots organizing and the careful coaching of witnesses--plus persuading the woman who wanted to show up at City Hall with her ferret dressed in a top hat, tuxedo shirt and bow tie to stay home.

June 29, 1999, is a day that will live in infamy for New York’s ferret community. That’s when the city board of health--ruling that the animals are dangerous and wild--added them to its list of forbidden pets. (The city’s no-pet lineup includes wolves, lions, tigers, bats, squirrels, dolphins, whales and elephants.)

The action followed a public hearing during which the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, several veterinarians and the Humane Society of New York testified that the biting potential of ferrets is no greater than that posed by dogs and cats.

“Public safety is a significant concern,” replied Dr. Neal L. Cohen, the city’s health commissioner. “Regardless of the extent to which an individual wild animal may appear to be tamed, its behavior remains unpredictable and the animal remains capable of inflicting injuries to people.”

The ferret owners fought back, hiring a lawyer and seeking more expert witnesses.

Borrowing a page from David Letterman, they put together the top 10 list of reasons to own a ferret. (No. 1: They are just too cute.)

Ferrets, they pointed out, are allowed as pets elsewhere in New York state and in 47 other states. California has banned ferrets as pets since 1933, but efforts are underway to overturn the law. The animals also are outlawed in Hawaii.

Owners argue that ferrets are simply misunderstood members of the weasel family and have been domesticated for more than 2,000 years.

Preparing for the hearing before the Health Committee of the City Council, the coalition of owners told witnesses to dress professionally, speak slowly and, above all, leave their ferrets at home.

“Police have shown up at events similar to this ready to confiscate any ferrets that might be attending,” said a notice posted on the supporters’ Web site.

“Ferrets are intelligent and they are friendly and they have a good sense of humor,” Mary R. Shefferman, editor of Modern Ferret magazine, testified at the hearing.

Shefferman and her husband live on Long Island, in a Cape Cod-style house with seven ferrets.

“Knuks is the smartest,” Shefferman said. “She is very manipulative. She has my husband, Eric, completely wrapped around her paw.”

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Times researcher Lynette Ferdinand contributed to this story.