LOS
ANGELES (AP) — The difference between owning a ferret in Hawaii and one in
Pennsylvania can be up to three years in jail — and hundreds of thousands of
dollars in fines.
That's
the penalty for ferret fans in the Aloha State, where the 3-pound members of
the weasel and polecat family are banned amid concerns of the animals escaping
and wreaking havoc on the islands' delicate ecosystems. Similar fears are
behind a decades-old ban in California, which has one of the nation's most
diverse ecosystems.
"The
concern is that if these animals were released, like other non-native species
have been, they would adapt and thrive and out-compete native
species for food, and prey on native species," said Adrianna Shea,
deputy director of California's Fish and Game Commission.
States
have had problems with feral animals in nonnative environments, creating
problems for native species by eating them or ravaging their food supply. Feral
cats, for example, have decimated bird populations. In Hawaii, the introduction
of the mongoose to combat a rat problem "was a very poor idea. Rats are
nocturnal and mongooses are diurnal. They only saw each other for a short
period between dusk and dawn," said Minami Keevin, a land vertebrate
specialist with the Hawaii Department of Agriculture.
But
ferret fans argue that the foot-long domesticated creatures make excellent pets
and shouldn't be regulated by wildlife agencies.
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