SB89 Going to the Govenor

[bimlie80]

If you haven't heard SB89, the domestic ferret amnesty bill has passed both the assembly and senate so now the bill goes to the Govenator. After all these years of DFG saying it had the authority to regulate this one particular domestic animal it is now saying it's not it's job to regulate this animal (which is what the bill states DFG would do during the study period).

The good news is that people can live with one more freedom, the right to own private property (which is what domestic animals are considered) and DFG can get back to enforcing laws which benefit our outdoors instead of chasing down little old ladies and their friggin caged ferrets.

I have high hopes that DFG is headed in the right direction. Now we need to work on getting the prohibition changed on hunting Mountain Lions.

 

[bimlie80]

SB89 was veto'd by the Govenor today. In typical liberal fashion the govenor totally ignored private property rights, common sense and the principles of limited government that Gov. Reagan so often preached as govenor.

Fish and Game will continue to spend valuable time and money chasing down grandma's and their caged, altered, domestic (meaning private property) housepets while poachers and polluters go on their merry way. What a pathetic state California has become. God at least we could take the friggin responsibilty away from our Wild Life Department and turn it over to county animal control, oh but then many of the countiy animal controls want nothing to do with this stupid law.

CWA pissed away money fighting this bill (to gain DFG favor).

Don't be suprised if pissed off ferret owners (some of the most conservative people I know) start supporting anti-hunting groups. I've already heard about people looking for a liberal representative to limit hunters use of domestic canines.

I'm done with the issue. I'm moving onto Drivers licenses for illegal ferrets.

 

[DuckDestroyer]

JHO-Hunting-California Hunting

This has to do with hunting?

Ferrets

Write a letter to Arnold.

 

[Kyrie_eleison]

I think perhaps that having Fish and Game diverting man power and money to enforce laws which technicly fall out of the realm of a Fish and Game has an impact on hunters. The precedent that it creates could eventually be used by anti-hunting groups to have fish and game regulate gun dogs(as the state becomes more liberal). For years in California ferrets were clasified as wild animals despite the USDA, the Pentagon and 49 states and numerous countries classifying them as domestic. Fish and Game argued that they are wild animals thus it could regulat

e them. Then they backed off the assertion that they are wild, thus recognizing them as domestic animals (meaning private property). Then they said they could not lift the prohibiton because as domestic animals they have no authority to remove them from the list of prohibited species.

I have been envolved with ferrets in California, helping to get them out of the state. I do it because I have had ferrets since I was a child and I know how to care for them (which is not easy) and two because I don't want my natural resource agency playing dog catcher. I don't care if they ever get legalised, actually having witnessed how poorly they are cared for by people I really think it would be better for the domestic ferret not to be legalised. That being said as a conservative I think it is wrong for government to overstep it's boundries. Are you aware that DFG commissioned (spent your money) on a survey and study of the 48 other states where ferrets are legal? The findings refuted DFG arguments so they buried the survey and report. They were threatend with a lawsuit under the freedom of information act. The survey is now posted on the DFG website for you to read for yourself.

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/hcpb/species/nuis_ex...et_issues.shtml

DFG also asserted that ferrets could not be legalised because there was no rabies vaccine, they once again faced a lawsuit by the makers of the vaccine so they caved, changing there arguement against ferret legalization.

Ron Jurek over at DFG built his career around his personal views of ferrets. He made a lot of claims that turned out to be false. Mr. Jurek a biologist overstepped his area of expertease and wandered into anthropology and history by saying ferrets have only been domesticated a short time (historians and anthropologist say 3,000 years which is longer than domestic cats). Ferrets were used by the Roman legions to hunt rabbits. They would stich their mouths closed and ferret out the rabbits. Ferrets have been in North America since the colonies, they were used for roddent control. They were used for the same purpose during the Civil war. Despite their being in America unaltered for more than two hundred years there has never been a recorded successful feral colony. On San Juan island they tried to get a feral colony going to rid the rabbit infestation. It failed because the animals could not be self sufficient. In New Zeland they were inter bred with wild European Polecats (which would be like breeding German Shepherds with wolves and setting them lose). There the population took off but it was not a domestic colony but rather a hybrid colony. Ron Jurek and other career bureaucrats have their credibility on the line, pride is a difficult thing to swallow.

If ferrets are going to remain illegal it should be for a reason other than what DFG asserts.

My two cents. I've no axe to grind.

Let DFG spend it's money(hunters tax dollars) on programs to promote hunting and let County Animal control spend it's budget dollars (the population at large's tax dollars) chasing housepets.

 

[Kyrie_eleison]

I should add I personaly attended some of the hearings on SB89. Some of the biggest supporters in the senate were hunters, Sen Oller and Sen Denham (who is a member of QU). They both said it is a waste of resources to have DFG enforcing this law. The DFG representative added that they don't actively enforce the law, usually they are confiscated when there is a falling out amongst friends. Many of the wardens were really hoping the law would pass so they wouldn't have to be bothered by ferrets.

 

[DuckDestroyer]

Ferrets.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...urbananimal.DTL

Ferret guardians in California claim that their furry friends pose no threat to native bird life. The state Department of Fish and Game disagrees with this opinion and, despite longtime lobbying by ferret owners, it remains illegal in the Golden State to own the slim woozles. In an earlier column, Urban Animal interviewed a pro-ferret activist who regards the fugitive status of his pets as ridiculous.

But dire warnings arrive from New Zealand: Dave Houston, species manager of the Department of Conservation's Coastal Otago Area on that nation's South Island, informs us that ferrets introduced to his idyllic land are slaughtering the penguin population.



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Hi, Dave. First off, I'm surprised to learn that there are penguins in New Zealand. I thought they lived only in Antarctica. How many penguins do you have down there?
There are six species here. Blue penguins live on North and South Island, with about 500,000 breeding pairs. Yellow-eyed and Fiordland crested penguins live on South Island and the Stewart Islands -- about 2,000 breeding pairs each. On other small islands, there's Snares penguins (30,000 pairs), erect-crested penguins (150,000 pairs) and rockhopper penguins (100,000 pairs).

Tourism is the main economy in New Zealand. Do the tourists like to look at your penguins? Are they a big attraction?

Yes. Penguins are an important part of the wildlife-tourism trade. In Otago, where I live, we have blue penguins and yellow-eyed penguins, both of which have industries based around them. They are icons of the area.

Are they safe? Or are the penguins getting killed off?

New Zealand mainland penguin populations are subject to human-induced pressures -- fishing competition, accidental bycatch and habitat destruction -- but the main problem is mammalian predators. It's hard to estimate how many penguins get killed, because there are many places we can't easily monitor, but predators are the largest cause of land-based mortality.

New Zealand once had no mammals at all, right?

Correct. One thousand years ago, there were no native land mammals. The Maori introduced the Polynesian rat and a domestic dog. And then -- starting 200 years ago -- Europeans brought in a wide and sometimes bizarre range of mammals, including cats, ferrets, stoats and weasels. These latter three -- collectively called mustelids -- were introduced to control European rabbits that were brought over for sport. The rabbits got spectacularly out of hand and overran large parts of the country. The farmers that introduced the mustelids were warned that this would be an environmental disaster in terms of the bird life that would suffer, and, indeed, many bird species are on the brink of extinction due to these small animals. The rabbits, by the way, are doing just fine. [Wild rabbits occupy 55 percent of New Zealand's land surface, and a recent estimate claims that rabbit control and production losses cost $22 million per year.]

What mammal is the most dangerous predator of penguins, in terms of percentage? Can you give me an estimate?

Hmm. It depends on the species of penguin, since they are of different sizes and live in different habitats. For example, on Stewart Island, there aren't any mustelids, so feral cats are the only major problem. Fiordland penguins live in a remote bush environment, and their biggest problem is stoats, but in areas where they meet humans, dogs are a problem. In Otago, all predators are present, and all represent a threat to yellow-eyed penguins. Blue penguins are small, and ferrets and stoats easily kill adults and chicks. I suppose, overall, stoats and ferrets would tie for the worst penguin predators overall.

What's the difference between a stoat, a ferret and a weasel?

They are all mustelids. Ferrets are the largest of the group introduced here. They are mainly grassland animals that target rabbits and other burrow-breeding animals -- they think burrow-breeding seabirds are particularly tasty. Stoats are smaller and good climbers, and are most commonly found in forest environments. They'll take on things many times bigger than them, and they are very efficient predators. Weasels are smaller again; they look like a small stoat with a truncated tail. They are specialist predators of voles, but since we don't have any, they make do with mice and rats, washed down with small birds and lizards.

Do ferrets kill just one penguin at a time, to eat them? Or do they kill many all at once, for sport?

They surplus kill -- that is, kill a whole lot more than they need to. I think the most I've seen is a dozen or so penguins killed at a time by a ferret, but this can be repeated just a few days later. As for serial killing, I can attribute 43 blue-penguin chicks and at least 20 eggs to a single female ferret that took them over a period of four weeks or so. She was feeding her young in the den, so she wasn't leaving behind any of the telltale evidence that would normally alert us to her presence. Once I saw her in the act, I was able to set the predator traps and catch her and, several days later, all five of her young.

I've heard that penguins have a very strong bite -- they can severely bruise humans -- but it seems like they can't defend themselves there. Or is it just chicks and eggs getting eaten?

Adult penguins can indeed bite very hard, but the chicks are pretty defenseless. Mustelids are fearless and have the uncanny ability to quickly kill an animal several times heavier than them. Ferrets weigh only 1 kilogram [2.2 pounds], but they've been recorded killing adult yellow-eyed penguins that weigh 6 kilograms. They kill by breaking or dislocating the vertebrae in the neck -- once a ferret has latched on to your neck, you're history.

In California, there is a big debate about legalization. Pro-ferret people say that pet ferrets cannot live in the wild if they escape; therefore, they can never be a threat to wildlife. Do you disagree with this?

The ferrets in the wild in New Zealand are from domestic stock, so we have all the evidence that is needed that they can and do survive in the wild. Not every country is the same, however. Although it is legal to keep ferrets as pets in Australia, they have never become established in the wild. New Zealand probably was easier for ferrets given that there was no competition and there was an abundant food supply that was naive about mammals. I don't know enough about the ecology of California to state a definitive yes or no, but I'd say, "Proceed with caution."

Do many New Zealanders have ferrets as pets? I read that the Green Party there is against ferrets as pets.

Pet ferrets are owned by a few, usually urban dwellers, and there are still old timers around who use them for clearing out rabbit dens. Ferrets make good pets, but the problem here is people taking them on trips and walks on islands -- a recipe for disaster, as these islands are havens for our endangered species.

Let's talk about the feral cats that kill penguins. Who let them loose?

Cats were bought in as pets, and also to control the rats that were also accidentally introduced. Inevitably, there were stray cats, and now the cats breed in the wild, living off native birds, reptiles, rats and rabbits.

What about dogs? Do they kill penguins?

Yes. It's not just that dogs eat the penguins; they just seem to find penguins irresistible, and they kill them surprisingly easily by crushing them in their mouths. Many penguin areas have clear signage asking owners not to take dogs into the area, but either the owners don't care, or the dogs are not under control.

How did you get involved with penguins?

I started out in my job as a generalist, doing all sorts of things, but then I got involved in penguins, and for quite some time now it's been a special interest of mine -- I even take my holidays to work on research projects on far-flung islands.

For more information on penguins in New Zealand, check out Dave Houston's Web site, New Zealand Penguins. Information on ferrets in New Zealand is available at Wild about New Zealand and Feral Ferrets in New Zealand.