This seems to be all over the news at the moment so no doubt you all will have read about it too — apparently Animal Control agents in Virginia Beach removed around 200 animals from a house in the area, which included 100 ferrets and 61 of the live ferrets had to be euthanized because of their poor condition.

And the other totally bizarre thing was that the lady concerned also kept dead ferrets, as well as an otter amongst other animals, in freezers in her house!!! What on earth was she thinking, do you think?

I guess maybe she thought she was helping the animals by giving them a home but, hey, if you can’t afford to look after them, it’s not doing much good for the poor little things, is it.

But there was something which I also found a bit strange in that news report, and it was the quote by Theresa Lamarche, community outreach director for the Virginia Beach SPCA.

She said, “Ferret breeding can quickly get out of hand. People don’t understand what’s required to care for them.”

And it also reported Lamarche saying, “the SPCA normally doesn’t take in ferrets because they should be left in the wild but called this case an exception.“

I’m afraid I started hyperventilating with anger when I read that, and thought that maybe it’d be a good idea for someone from the American Ferret Association to educate the Virginia Beach SPCA about ferrets.

Like … ‘No, they shouldn’t be left in the wild. What on earth are you talking about?’

And … ‘Hello … what do you mean that ferret breeding can quickly get out of hand?! Most ferrets are sterilized when young, before they hit the pet stores, so there’s no chance of them breeding!’

It seemed like she didn’t have a clue about what she was talking about.

But then I came across an announcement made by the SPCA and I think the news report was the one which got the quote all mixed up.

If you read the report by the Virginia Beach SPCA you’ll see that they talk about the OTTER being a wild animal, not the ferrets, and they are doing their very best to rehouse the remaining ferrets once they’ve been checked by the vet and deemed well enough to go to new homes.

That’s a relief!

But I still think the AFA should send an email to Ms Lamarche explaining the errors of her comments as statement like hers do nothing to promote a decent understanding of our favorite pet with Joe Public.

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