Let’s Not Have Any Weaseling on This Issue

I believe it’s been many, many years since any story during a holiday season has been as emotionally compelling and poignant as the one that ran in this newspaper a few days ago about New Yorkers and their love for furry little animals.

Did you read it?

If not, you missed a moving tale about how tender-hearted New Yorkers can be when it comes to adopting pets. And about how cruel, inconsiderate and downright pig-headed the government’s authorities can be toward some of God’s cutest creatures--not just back in the civilized East, but here in the untamed California wilderness as well.

“You are devoting your life to weasels!” New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani rudely snapped at one pet lover.

He said this because the mayor is one of those prejudiced Big Apple big shots who doesn’t feel a taxpayer should have a ferret for a house pet.

That’s right--a ferret.

And he is not the only political weasel who feels this way.

California law also prohibits the keeping of a ferret as a pet. And so does Hawaii’s. These are the only states, other than New York, enforcing a no-ferret policy.

No such ban exists in Washington, D.C., where weasels have been in abundant supply for years.

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A ferret is a small critter--usually 19 to 21 inches long, including the tail--from the polecat family. It’s got pink eyes and a yellowish coat, much like many of the drunks found in New York’s finest saloons.

Ferrets can be easily tamed. They don’t growl at you or try to take a bite out of you any more than certain other animals in New York that have to be followed around town with scoopers.

Now I don’t know why the mayor there would accuse a fellow New Yorker of “devoting your life to weasels,” as he rather bluntly did.

But when a ferret aficionado called in to Giuliani’s regular radio program to speak on the little weasel’s behalf, the caller got a real tongue-lashing. At one point Rudolph the red-faced mayor said, “There’s something deranged about you,” and even recommended a visit to a psychiatrist.

(This could make an excellent topic for radio shrinks on their call-in programs, by the way. “Pet Peeves: What’s the Reason for Weasel Rage?”)

New York’s City Council entertained proposals Tuesday from ferret-supporting factions. These animal lovers are eager to repeal a law passed in 1999, there in the same ruthless city that once ordered a friendly gorilla shot down from the Empire State Building.

I could understand New Yorkers not wanting to wear ferret, if this were a fur issue. Otherwise, you’d think they’d embrace the little darlings.

California has the same problem. According to the story I read, as many as a half-million ferrets are being kept here--illegally--as house pets. This may make us not only the entertainment capital of the world, but the weasel capital as well.

For all I know, there are ferret-catchers who drive around in trucks catching strays. Perhaps there are ferret squads from the police that will be out in force over the holidays, seizing weasels by the thousands.

I can’t imagine that the mayor of Los Angeles would be as vicious as the mayor of New York if anyone protested our local ferret laws.

I’m also delighted that L.A. County’s newly elected district attorney says he plans to ease enforcement of California’s three-strikes law to include major crimes only, which should keep repeat ferret offenders from doing hard time.

We Californians adore animals.

You know this already if you’ve ever been to the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum and have seen Trigger in his taxidermist’s pose, or visited the Los Angeles Memorial Pet Park’s graves of Hopalong Cassidy’s horse and a pet chicken named Blinky.

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A West Covina couple recently fought for months to keep a pet after being accused of violating a municipal code banning an “animal not generally raised by man as a household pet or domesticated animal.” It was a chimp named Moe.

Different pets for different households. I personally know three women who have kept rabbits as indoor pets, and nobody to my knowledge has ever told them, “There’s something deranged about you.”

So let’s be fair to ferrets.

Somewhere out there, there is a precious little puppy, kitty or weasel awaiting a child this Christmas.

We can’t have some young boy or girl falling in love with a new ferret over the holidays only to have it taken away. We just can’t.

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Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to: Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com