Ferret Fans Hope Victory Is in Reach in Bid to Make Furry Fugitives Legal

Admirers call them cute, cuddly and loaded with personality. Critics insist they are sharp-toothed predators that would bite a toddler or devour an endangered bird if given half a chance.

We are talking, of course, about ferrets, those furry, weasel-like critters that have been banned as pets in California since 1933.

For nearly a decade, ferret lovers have pushed legislators to liberate the pointy-nosed creatures from their outlaw status and put them on par with cats, dogs and other domestic pets.

This year, ferrets may just taste freedom, proving that perseverance--and a remarkably savvy grass-roots lobby of ferret fanciers--can indeed change minds in Sacramento.

A bill providing “amnesty” for ferrets already living in California recently cleared the state Senate, enjoying support from lawmakers who helped tank similar measures in the past. The bill gets its first hearing this week in the Assembly, and backers--who have swamped legislators with pro-ferret pleas and even taken two of the animals on tours around the Capitol--believe victory is within reach.

“We hope the day is near when ferret owners will no longer need to lead secret lives,” said Jeanne Carley, executive director of Californians for Ferret Legalization. “It’s really offensive how this state has treated ferret owners like criminals and forced them to hide their pets from friends and neighbors for fear they’ll be turned in.”

Only one other state--Hawaii--forbids keeping ferrets as pets, though a few big cities, New York among them, also have bans. Despite the prohibition, somewhere from 95,000 to 500,000 ferrets live covertly in California homes.

Carley said the state’s no-ferret policy reflects a foolhardy bias against an animal she describes as “joyful, delicate and helpless.” The bill’s author, Republican Sen. Maurice Johannessen of Redding, agreed, saying his experience with ferrets--though now a law-abiding citizen, his daughter surreptitiously owned one for years--convinced him that Mustela putorius furo is getting a bum rap.

“These are really quite lovable and intelligent little creatures, but there is this paranoia about them that has set in,” Johannessen said. “It’s very odd.”

State biologists say it’s not paranoia but science that makes them leery of lifting the ferret ban. As carnivores born and initially bred to hunt, ferrets pose a threat to ground-nesting birds and small mammals, they say.

California’s native wildlife is already in peril from cats, dogs, red foxes and dwindling habitat, among other threats, said Ron Jurek, a wildlife biologist with the Department of Fish and Game. Feral ferrets--escapees or cast-offs from families who tire of them--would compound the problem, he said.

Opposition also has come from the Audubon Society and the California Waterfowl Assn., where lobbyist Bill Gaines said that “ferrets have had a devastating impact on birds in other parts of the world--including New Zealand.”

Gaines, who has battled ferret-friendly bills throughout the 1990s, worries that ferret lovers may finally triumph through sheer staying power: “Legislators tell me that these ferret people have a lobby unlike anything they’ve ever seen.”

Ferret lovers say the dogged determination springs in part from their status as owners of a persecuted pet, an animal they cannot walk in the park, introduce to friends or bring to first-grade show-and-tell.

Claudia T. (She would not give her last name.) lives “somewhere in the San Gabriel Valley” and is president of Ferrets Anonymous. Claudia wouldn’t say how many ferrets she harbors, but admitted with a nervous laugh that it is “more than 10.”

Her first purchase was a baby, picked up in Las Vegas in 1988 and smuggled across the border. “It was asleep down on the floor in a pillowcase, so it couldn’t be seen,” she said. “They don’t ask you if you have any ferrets, so I didn’t exactly have to lie.”

Others have been less fortunate. Though state game wardens do not operate a sting operation for ferrets, border seizures are common. And Carley said ferret owners are forever vulnerable to finks--usually “an ex-boyfriend or fired employee who knows you have a ferret and turns you in.”

“They’re used like children in a nasty divorce--it’s awful,” Carley said. While possession of a ferret is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine and possible jail time, authorities typically confiscate the animal and leave it at that.

The ferret belongs to the family that includes the badger, otter, weasel and mink. Initially, they were used in Europe and England to hunt rabbits at a time when managed warrens were an important food source. Brought to the United States in 1875, they became famous as ship’s ratters--preferable to cats because of their ability to fit in tiny nooks and crannies--and have also been bred for their fur.

Their popularity as animal companions soared in the 1970s and 1980s, and pet store shelves are well-stocked with everything from ferret kibble to coat conditioner. The Internet is loaded with information on how to show, choose, house and litter-train ferrets, and Modern Ferret is must reading for the dedicated owner.

While past bills sought to legalize ferrets outright, this year’s version (SB 1093) would merely grandfather in all ferrets in the state as of May 1. It would also require that they be vaccinated for rabies and spayed or neutered.

Foes say granting amnesty would amount to legalization. “How do you enforce that?” asked Gaines of the Waterfowl Assn. “Walk around and ask every ferret what day he arrived in California?”

In pushing for amnesty, backers have gathered signatures on petitions urging Gov. Gray Davis to sign the bill--he has no official position yet--and fired off scores of letters trumpeting the virtues of ferrets.

Linda Rundlett of Suisun City made this point: “These sweet fuzzies offer families of asthmatic sufferers an alternative to cats and dogs.”

Perhaps so, but the Audubon Society worries that if the Legislature gets in the business of taking animals off the forbidden list, it will “open the floodgates,” encouraging other groups “to push their favorite banned species for legalization.”

Better to leave the task of evaluating what should or shouldn’t be a pet to the state Fish and Game Commission, Audubon officials argue.

In fact, ferret lovers tried that last year. But when the commission required them to prepare an environmental impact report, they concluded that the commission had an anti-ferret bias and refocused their efforts on the Legislature.

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Ferret Facts

* The domestic ferret, Mustela putorius furo, is a relative of the otter and weasel.

* Weighing a bit less than a Chihuahua, they have poor eyesight but excellent hearing and sense of smell.

* Males (called hobs) are twice as big as females (jills).

* They rarely live past age 10, and can start to show signs of old age by 3.

* They’re known as the Houdinis of the animal world for their escape abilities.

* Originally bred for hunting rabbits, they were also used as ship’s “ratters.”

* Banned as pets in California and Hawaii, as well as some cities, including New York.

* Estimates of the California pet population range from 95,000 to 500,000.

* For information, visit www.ferretsanonymous.com.