Free the ferrets.

• Author: Lynch, Michael

California's banal ban on an innocent pet

Arizona resident Brent Utley ran head on into one of California's most bizarre laws on a sweltering day in June 1995. Utley was heading for summer school in California with his two pet ferrets in tow. He declared them at the Department of Food and Agriculture inspection station in Blythe, California, not realizing that his Arizona pets were contraband in California. The inspectors refused him entrance to the state as long as he had his furry friends.

Facing the unpalatable options of returning home to find a ferret sitter or trying to sneak through, he made an unsuccessful repeat run for the border. He was arrested, and the judge imposed a $500 fine and three years of probation.

"I told them I didn't have the money," Utley said, "so they said that I could go to jail for four days." Utley actually spent only one day behind bars, earning an early release for good behavior - and press coverage that embarrassed the county.

Described by enthusiasts as "cats without the attitude" and "kittens that never grow up," domestic ferrets, members of the weasel family, are furry bundles weighing one to five pounds. Although their cousin, the rare black-footed ferret, is native to America, the kind kept as pets originated in Europe. The consensus among experts everywhere but in California's Department of Fish and Game is that the cage-bound domestic ferret is a basically harmless pet. Elsewhere in the continental United States, having a ferret for a pet is no problem. But the California DFG says ferrets are a wild menace, and it bans ownership of them.

As ferrets have come into favor, the ban has been causing hardship for otherwise law-abiding citizens. According to the DFG, in 1989 there were some 500,000 ferrets in California. Ferrets Anonymous, a clandestine group of ferret owners, claims a membership of 2,200 Californians. The California Domestic Ferret Association mails its newsletter to nearly 5,000 California households. As testimony to the pets' popularity, large California pet stores routinely carry ferret food, ferret cages, and ferret toys, despite the ban.

Largely because of the work of Ferrets Anonymous and the California Domestic Ferret Association, a three-year effort to overturn the DFG's ferret prohibition is on the verge of success. On May 16, the California Assembly passed by a margin of 60-7 a nonbinding resolution calling on the Fish and Game Commission to legalize the ferret. The only thing...