Posts Tagged ‘black-footed ferrets’

Ferrets are not pets for the unaware. They are too inquisitive and too acquisitive for the casual pet owner. They steal keys, cigarettes, wallets, pagers, cell phones and shoes. And they investigate any likely source of goodies—thus today’s picture of Taz proving that Woozles, unlike Tiggers, DO like honey. This is what happens if we forget to move the turntable from the table when he is at liberty. Lids are a temporary impediment at best! Unfortunately, they also eat things like ear plugs, which are bad for them and result in expensive surgeries.

The domesticated pet ferrets act a lot like their wild cousins, the black footed ferret, but in spite of what California law says—they are NOT wild and cannot replace the wild ferret. The black footed ferret, while still very endangered, is being bred and released into its old habitat. While I have watched hours of video related to this desperate effort to save these beautiful little predators, I can’t say I have much hope. They had such limited breeding stock to begin the program, I fear there will not be a healthy amount of genetic diversity in the animals produced. And in July this year, sylvatic plague swept through the prairie dog/ferret habitat in the Dakotas and killed over a third (last check) of the re-established ferrets dwelling there.

My pet ferrets are my link to a world I fear is disappearing: a nature under assault. The latest video I enjoyed is to be found at the link: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/551895/black_footed_ferret/

Yes, I blither on and on, and a lot of it utterly unworthy of comment.  Still, one tends to occasionally judge oneself by the comments one gets, right?  So, judging myself by one I deleted from some yahoo calling himself “Captain 911″ I must be doing something right.   He called me a “communist motherfucker” and then launched into the longest comment I have ever seen,  bitching about virtually everything positive ever said about Barrack Obama.  Since it was attached to a very old post, and one largely posted in humor, I suspect the “captain” is surfing the web and spam-a-lotting anyone who mentions Obama in a post.  Borrrrrrrring.

And now, without further ado, since I’d PREFER to judge myself by the many wonderful bloggers on my blogroll at right instead of by insulting gestulators, I pledge to initiate my own version of Caturday posts.  The difficulty here is, I have no cats of my own—my son has three, so you might actually get a Caturday! But, what I have are woozles (ferrets for the rest of you!)  But I must learn to use my digital camera and laptop in concert and being a medieval minded old bat, this will take time.

So my first Woozly Weekend will not be entirely my own ferrets, but a link to the breeding facility attempting to re-introduce the adorable mini-predator deluxe, the Black footed ferret, to the wild.  At the link, scroll down for the video of Mama BF Ferret “Georgia” and her wee baby boy ferret.  I don’t know what they call him, but I call him “Peach” because he is just as luscious and fuzzy!

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/NorthAmerica/default.cfm

I can and do keep this live feed video on my computer all day for frequent ferret-fix glances as I go through my day.  The wonderful wild woozles act astonishingly like my own domestic versions, with so many of the same endearing habits and behaviors that I am reduced to a semi-melted axe at least once every couple hours.  How poor the natural world will be if they cannot find a way to buck up the genetic diversity of the American wilds with a survivable number of these creatures!

Below is an older photo of our one-time kitty “Sugar” and my first heartbreaking rescued ferret “Tink”.  Tink (not big enough to be an entire Tinkerbell) was already in deep trouble with adrenal cancer when she was given to us,  our efforts to save her failed.  But we learned a lot, and had better luck with other adrenal ferrets.

I have trouble sleeping. It began with menopause—I would wake every hour or so and stay awake for an hour or so. Now, I don’t do that any more, but my body has decided that I am hard-wired for night-owl behavior and I can’t drop off to sleep before one or two a.m. This makes rising early difficult. But I have plenty of grist for the mental mill when I toss and turn in the darkness:

(1) Is it only in Texas that a 17 year old girl could be severely battered in her church as part of an exorcism? Is it only in Texas that the state Supreme Court would rule in the church’s favor and not allow her to sue, although the process so traumatized her that she was suicidal afterwards? Pray for Laura Shubert, because the court decided that ruling in her favor would “entangle the court in church doctrine”….does that mean this is the Texan idea of “separation of church and state”? The concurring six justices felt that upholding an earlier court ruling in favor of Shubert would have a “chilling effect” on the practice of religion. Am I a cynic to think that if this had been a case of a Muslim father religiously having his daughter’s clitoris removed, the ruling would have been FAR different? Or if a pagan child complained of abuse in the name of religion? Or, oh, I don’t know, if a soldier said they didn’t think they should be forced to pray and attend religious observances to be promoted? Holding down a 17 year old girl who is being attitudinal, and battering the hell out of her while her parents are out of town…that is ok, though. Hat tip to Blondesense.

(2) Endorsements are good, right? So, it is good that the wizened little Vietnamese who once was John McCain’s jailer in Hanoi thinks he would be a good President, right? Sorry, I am so squicked out by this and the picture of Tran Trong Duyet embracing McCain that I just can’t say anything more about it. Hat tip to “Sadly, No” for this little brain teaser.

(3) If what goes up must come down, then mustn’t whatever goes down come back up? Because, if so, isn’t it like burying a landmine to think that storing carbon dioxide underground in a layer of subterranean salt water will be a lasting solution? Because that is what an ethanol plant in the Midwest wants to do with the 250,000 tons of carbon dioxide they generate annually. Is it the silly inner idealist in me that makes me think finding something not related to wild-assed petroleum products usage would be a better solution? But then, the state of Ohio is in love with the idea of pumping toxic things down into Mother Earth’s bowels: hydrochloric acid from AK Steel in Middleton, chemicals from Ineos in Lima, and deicing fluid and other things from Vickery “Environmental” near Fremont. I am glad I will not be around at some future date to see what Ma Nature REALLY thinks of toxic enemas.

(4) Why are pagans SO reasonable? I mean, yes, some are bitching that Kathy Lee Gifford apologize for a stupid-assed comment about “nasty, evil pagans” on that boring morning show of hers—saying we need to sign a petition demanding her apology; but the majority says “Na-aaaah, no biggee.” I agree, it wasn’t a biggee, she is a twit, that’s all. But, if the twit had said “Nasty evil Christians” some serious shit would have hit fans from here to Jupiter. Is it just plain bitchiness that makes me think that yes, she should get a little cultural broadening of her horizons and a small butt chewing for not having anything more clever and erudite to say? And my personal note to Kathy Lee? Honey, you can call this pagan evil and nasty if you like, just so long as you believe it and stay the heck out of my way!

Yeah, yeah, this is the “drooling idiot on sleep deprivation” post of the week. On the other hand, watching baby and mama black-footed ferrets at a breeding facility on a live cam is very restful indeed: http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/NorthAmerica/default.cfm

Scroll down a bit, and double click the video for full screen fuzzy animal moments!