by Jess Howe

Created on: July 01, 2008   Last Updated: March 06, 2009

Hunting with ferrets is a good way to ensure you'll get your game. The clever fiends may be called "little thief" in Latin, and for good reason as anyone who owns one knows. However, they seem to have been domesticated for hunting in the beginning! An example of just how useful ferrets can be, when properly trained, is the film "Kindergarten Cop". In that famous movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger's character owns a pet ferret who saves his character's life and that of the kids several times over with its cleverness.

People's thoughts on them go back and forth through history. Caesar Augustus in 6 BC, for instance, sent them to one of his islands to control the rabbit population. On the other hand, today in many countries using the beasts for hunting is illegal because people are worried about ecological balance. They were also used in the United States to protect grain stores, till World War II.

Despite the controversial views of the past and present, ferrets really are very effective when hunting. Due to centuries of development, they have an instinct to be living "seek-and-destroy missiles"! They can and will find as many vermin as you want.

Rabbit hunting with ferrets, which seems to be the usual kind of hunting done with them, is actually absurdly simple. All you have to do is stick the beast down the rabbit burrow, and then tie what's called a pole bag at the top of the hole. When the rabbit is chased out of its burrow entrance, voila! There it is, in the bag.

There are variations on this idea, naturally. One is the time-honored idea of letting the ferret hunt out the rabbit underground, and having a dog stand by aboveground to take over when the creature tries to make a run for it. Or, you could just shoot it outright if you mean more business than pleasure.

The other side of all this is that you must care for your ferret. That's pretty easy to do. Ferrets are carnivores but will eat other things from time to time, and they're very friendly. You'll want a transmitter collar for it, just so you don't lose it in the rabbit warren, and probably a cheap cage will do too.

Ferret hunting is illegal now in most parts of the United States, but not in Great Britain or Australia, where the practice is still very much alive. It's very likely that the giant drop in numbers of rabbit in the UK is due to this practice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrets
http://www.count rysportsandcountrylife.com/sections/ferrets/
http://w ww.aushunt.com.au/

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