A day or so ago, news articles hit the Internet about a 4 month old infant whose fingers were bitten off by a pet ferret. It’s a very sad story, with some serious implications for ferrets, ferret owners and ferret shelters.
What is concerning is that people will suddenly decide — or be pressured into — dumping their ferret(s). The better cases will end up at ferret shelters. Others will end up at local humane agencies, where they will be in danger of being euthanized. The worst case will be people who put them outside to die slowly or who kill the ferret themselves.
It’s a painful topic, but something that does need to be addressed.
The main point I would like to make is, even if the ferret did do this (and it’s not clear from news reports — wild rats have been known to do such things) it is important to remember that this is not normal ferret behavior. Even ferrets who are fed whole prey (mice, chicks, etc.) and raw chicken know the difference between food and people. If the ferret did do this, I am suspicious that the ferret was starving or perhaps mistreated. The average pet ferret just is not going to gnaw your fingers off.
Ferrets can and do bite under certain circumstances. We won’t deny that, but the number of ferrets who do NOT bite vastly outweigh those who do. Most of the ferrets I’ve met who bit were ones that were deaf, frightened, sick, abused or poorly trained … and with the exception of one ferret who was mentally unstable due to poor breeding, none of those ever did anything like this.
It makes for great press, and when serious ferret bite incidents hit the airwaves, it spreads like wildfire, making it sound like families everywhere are putting their children at risk. In this case, there are some very serious questions that need to be answered.
First, what was the child doing on the floor in a rocker with the ferret loose? My pet ferrets are sweet, but even I don’t sleep with them out (although many people do and have no problems). My ferrets would nip my toes. Notice I said “nip” and not “gnaw off”. What parent would leave any child, least of all an infant, alone with a ferret? (She was asleep … that’s alone enough for me.)
Second, the mother was asleep on the couch in the same room as the infant. Why did she not wake up? It takes time to gnaw off 7 fingers. The infant had to have been screaming his head off! Why didn’t she wake up? Unless she was deaf (and deaf people have ways of monitoring their children), the only reason I can think of is that the mother was somehow impaired. I had four children; I woke up at the first squeak. I don’t think my experience is different from most mothers.
Third, did the ferret really do it? The father killed the ferret (it makes me ill to think about it), but could it have been a rat? I wasn’t there, so I don’t know if there was obvious evidence it had been the ferret.
Statistics on bites indicate that the number of serious ferret bites barely registers. One source quoted 65 reportable ferret bites (not maimings or deaths, but bites) between 1978-1987. In contrast, there were 34 deaths associated with dog attacks just in 2010. A serious incident involving ferrets happens occasionally, but to my memory, only once every 10 years or so.
Ferret shelters everywhere are cringing right now, just waiting for the onslaught of surrendered ferrets and bad public opinion. I hope that people really think before they start dumping their animals.
Responsibility for an incident like this rests firmly in the hands of the parents, not at the feet of an entire class of pet animal.
