Fierce hunter makes docile pet

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33455, 9 February 1974, Page 9

Fierce hunter makes docile pet

(By

ROGER KINGSBURY)

Do you have a yen for ferreting' facts, or for a net with a university background? If the answer is yes, or if you have a rabbit problem, the chances are that the University of Canterbury can help you. It does not matter if you do not know that Mustela putorius was one of New Zealand’s early settlers <1868), but descendants of this family now play an important role in the psychology department of the university, where their social behaviour and responses to a variety of situations are tested.

After “graduation” (generally at the age of one year) they become available for employment in the community as rabbiters or pets, depending on how the new owner wishes to utilise the characteristics of his ferret. For a small fee, no doubt added to a fund for the maintenance of protective leather gloves, Mrs Robyn Reid, a laboratory technician in the department, will place a ferret in your travelling box and hand you a sheet of instructions on its care. The rest is over to you. Most of the information provided relates to the comfort and well-being of the ferret.

One small but important niece of advice is for the benefit of the purchaser. It reads, “It is probably a good idea to use leather gloves for the first few days of

handling your ferrets — at least until you and the ferret get over any initial fears.” Mrs Reid, who is responsible for the care of all livestock in the laboratory, said that surplus adult ferrets, male and female, are sold each year during January and February. Orders, some of several dozen, are received from buyers in the North and South Island concerned with the control of rabbits.

Many are sold for pets. They are intelligent creatures and readily become docile pets when their confidence has been won and they have become accustomed to regular handling. However they can become fierce if not treated kindly, and can inflict a painful puncture bite. Rabbit control Ferrets, weasels and stoats (Mustelids) were liberated in New Zealand between 1868 and 1898 to control rabbits. The ferret is a domesticated form of the pole-cat and resembles it in some respects. It has a creamy white under-fur with black guard hairs. The legs, neck, tail and mask around the eyes are almost black, although albino ferrets have been recorded occasionally in Canterbury.

The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand records that Mustelids have been the subject of considerable controversy since their liberation in New Zealand. People in charge of rabbit control claim they

have helped to reduce rabbits, but conservationists say they contribute to the extermination or scarcity of some species of native birds. Night hunters Ferrets have been used for many centuries for rabbiting, and their distribution and numbers coincide fairly closely with the rabbit population of New Zealand. They hunt mainly by night, but sometimes by day. They do not climb as readily as stoats, and in rabbit areas they do much of their hunting in burrows. Rabbits are the main prey of ferrets in many districts, but they also take such food as birds, rats, mice, hares and carrion, and less frequently, fish, frogs, lizards, insects and bird’s eggs. The Canterbury Acclimatisation Society obtained five ferrets as early as 1867 and another in 1868. Although they were apparently not liberated, their progeny were probably sold. An alarming increase in rabbits during the early 1880 s led to the introduction of many ferrets, stoats and weasels in the hope that these natural enemies would help control them. In 1879 five ferrets were “packed in” to the Conway River district. In 1884 3041 ferrets were liberated in Marlborough and 400 in Otago.

In 1892 a reduction in rabbits south of the Clarence River and along the coastline to the Hurunui River was attributed “to the good work done by the ferrets.”