wild ferrets!!!

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

Good stuff there, JDF. I'd love to know what criteria they used for that ten point system. And that also establishes that there are indeed plenty of 'wild' (Feral) ferrets out there, happy to breed with Polecats. However, that in itself raises yet another damn question I think this one might make my head hurt too:

 

If they know there's a ready pool of Ferrets out there and that these will corrupt the purity of any Polecat genes they encounter then what on earth's the point of breeding up and releasing Polecats all over the place? Unless of course someone carried out some covert operation to completely eliminate all traces of feral Ferrets for a vast area around the Polecat release sites? Even in that unlikely event, it'd only be a matter of time before someone inadvertantly introduced a fresh Ferret to the location or else outside Ferrets flowed in. In short; There's practically no way they're ever going to keep free roaming Polecats 100 pure all the time people have Ferrets. So why bother releasing them? Just sounds like throwing good money after bad, to me.

 

Perhaps, as must be the case with the Highland Wildcat, the only way to truly ensure the continuing integrity of existing, proven captive stock is to keep the buggers captive? Wouldn't it otherwise be simpler and even more sensible to just accept that the Polecat is a rare, and likely increasingly rare at that, creature in the wild. But that we have now instead a newer form of Mustalid carnivour filling the old Polecats wider national niche (The Polecat x Ferret) and just get on with it?

 

 

 

Darren; To the best of my knowledge mate, the Polecat is indiginous to britain. I imagine we could sit here all day and argue then wether our modern day Ferrets are descendents from Polecats which someone (Saxons, eg. Pick any historical people, really) managed to capture and domesticate. Or wether they partially or even wholley orignated elsewhere. I wasn't there myself, I'm afraid, so really couldn't answer that one definatively.

 

What I will throw into the mix though is that I once read somewhere that Ferrets are thought to have originated in Syria - of all places! - where they were used against rats. Of course, just where I read that. Who wrote it and what source they believed they had for their information is another moot point.

 

Further to all that fun, something stated in JDF's bit there struck a chord with me; The concentration once again on skull measurements. Only, is it me, or is there very often a visably noticable differance in the heads of many white Ferrets and most polecat coloured ones even? I just seem to have seen more albino Ferrets with what appears to have been a more high crowned and thus sharply pointed face than I see on most dark furred Ferrets. Or it that just an optical illusion, caused by the softening effect of a darker colour?

 

F*ck me, Darren; Just look what ye've started!

[Ricky-N.p.p 0]

surely the most interesting, informative thread to be posted on this forum in a long long time !

 

[Guest JDF]

Ditch mate the first three paragraphs i'm with you completly but it's strange that theres no hybridisation on a large scale in wales,perhaps welsh ferreters don't lose ferrets

 

i've just read something somewhere that gives evidence that polecats may not be indigenous to britain at all.

on the syria thing,i've seen that myself but i'm pretty sure it was thought to be more of a mongoose type animal than a ferret.read somewhere (most likely plummers book that it's also been mentioned in the bible but again that would depend on the translation).

it's also suggested that the steppe polecat and the black footed ferret are the same speices

 

on the skull thing,i thought that too,perhaps like you say it's an illusion but i've had some very pointy faced whites at the same time as round faced poleys,perhaps it's whats under the skin and flesh thats the same.

no i'm not sure about that i think they're different,be nice too hear what others have to say on this.

 

damn you darren i feel another obsession coming on.

 

heres a link to the question of wether it's indeginous.

 

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi...2.00104.x/full/

[Guest JDF]

 

polecat distribution map

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

What a cracking article that was, JDF! And I'll be damned; It really is looking like a photo finish, isn't it? Neither camp yet able to show proof posative. Just goes to show; We can't even rely on the most obvious 'facts'.

 

So, apart from day dreaming about what ever Mustela robusta must have looked like ~ some sort of Wolverine? ~ Where does that leave us?

 

Ok, off the top of my head; First thought that comes to me from that lot is this: The author hypothesises that the Polecat may have been imported, during the middle ages, for it's fur? Fine. I can live with that. Only one problem which he does rather let slide by there ..... Imported from where?! Where would he have us accept is the ancestoral homeland of this suspectedly non indiginous creature that 'somebody' brought here from 'somewhere' for it's fur. He doesn't even appear to touch on that rather glaring anomaly in his two part concluding arguements, does he?

 

I suppose he's taking it as read that we'll accept the obvious of Continental Europe? But I'd then have to point out the equelly obvious fact that that particular land mass has never been seperated from the contemporary and so, one might imagine, historical home range of the Steppe Polecat. That leads me to wonder what it might be about M. eversmannii that it has retained it's integrity whilst perhaps having Mp. on it's territorial borders? Perhaps the answer lies in the next bit:

 

Clutton-Brock, 1987, suggests the Ferret may be a cross between M. eversmannii and M. putorius Wonder where the hell he got that idea from?! I mean, I believe the thing keeping ME and MP apart is terrain type preferances, if I remember correctly. So how are they supposed to have met for this liason which allegedly gave us the Ferret? And who then weeded out all the MPF's from the free living gene pool of ME and shooed the MP's back out to their own corner again? Sorry. Just can't see that one myself.

 

Anyway, quite enough there to keep us all for a while, eh?

 

Why is there no large scale hybridisation (MP to MPF) in Wales? On the face of it, another brain buster. But then, annecdotally, I've always heard those 'Welsh Polecats' are said to inhabit only the remotest and " most inaccessable " regions of that principallity. Maybe welsh ferreters just lose their ferrets in the more populated zones? If the welsh MP lives in isolated regions, void of much human population, then surely, by definition, there'll be less ferreters around to have ferrets too lose ~ the few that are there and do lose their MPF's accounting for the nominal level of such hybridisation now taking place?

 

Thinking back; Maybe the Carpathian mountains are too sparsely populated by ferreters? That may explain why we don't hear of ME x MPF? Wonder where the hell that would leave us, if we did? Make an even bigger monkey out of Clutton-Brock there, wouldn't it?

 

 

Regards the Syria thing; Yeppers. I suspect ye right there. Does sound like just the sort of thing Plummer would have come out with, doesn't it? I too suspect it would have been some form of Mongoose ~ as were actually once used in england for that very same purpose. Funny how Plumms never mentioned that one, eh?

 

Steppe Polecat and Black Footed Ferret the same speices Who on earth came up with That idea?!? I can just see Plummer and Clutton-Brock, both giggling pissed as hand carts, slapping the table in hilarity as they gasp; " God, yes! Let's tell the b*stards That one and see how many'll swallow it! " FFS!

[Guest JDF]

 

great post.

 

it's wonderful what google can throw up,i'm scared to read anymore in case i start to believe it

 

Clutton-Brock,is it possible we've stumbled upon another of plummers pen names

[Crow 1]

Some interesting points that I agree with, othrs I just have to challenge, but I'll add my further thoughts when I've digested what's been written since my last contribution

 

Off to Microsoft Word now, back later - it could take a while

 

Crow