Controversial Ferret Publishing

By Mary R. Shefferman

  Believe it or not, when we started Modern Ferret magazine in 1995, we got letters of complaint after the very first issue. What was the problem? Well, we showed pictures of poop, which some people thought was very distasteful for a magazine to do. All they wanted to see were cute pictures of ferrets.

  It was around that time that Green Slime (ECE or epizootic catarrhal enteritis) was first making the rounds, and we published pictures of what it looks like in real life, in color. How else would ferret owners know how to recognize it? There was still a lot of denial about ECE. People didn’t want to believe their ferrets had it. Vets didn’t want to believe it actually existed.

  We were fortunate to have the permission of Dr. Bruce Williams to publish a piece he had written about ECE. It was one of the first -- if not THE first -- veterinary articles about ECE (though at that time it was still called only “Green Slime”). It had circulated on the Internet at that time and had been printed in several club newsletters, but Modern Ferret was able to reach a different group of ferret owners. So we did what we thought was the best for ferrets. We ran Dr. Williams’ article and we ran photos of green slime poop in a litter box.

  See, you can describe the poop and other symptoms of ECE, but until you see it, there can be doubt. We’d seen it described as bright (neon) green slimy diarrhea. But if a ferret had a lot of brown slimy poop, it was likely to be ECE, too. Many ferret owners were confused. They claimed their ferrets didn’t have ECE because the diarrhea in the litter box wasn’t bright green. Pictures of bona fide ECE put those doubts to rest.

  With the speed and ease with which ECE spreads, it was important to break through ferret owners’ -- and vets’ -- denial. Our ferrets had gotten ECE without even coming into contact with other ferrets! Somehow we brought it home to them from a ferret show -- and we’d tried to be careful about it. It was out there, it was spreading easily, and it was damn scary. Ferrets could get dehydrated, stop eating, and die very rapidly if they didn’t receive immediate supportive treatment.

  So we published pictures of poop. And we got grief for it. And we got letters of appreciation from people who were able to convince their vets that ECE existed because they could show them that a magazine had a story about it.

  It’s said that if you don’t get hate mail for something you’ve published, you’re not making a difference. If that’s the case, then we’ve been making a difference since 1995. I know many of you know that. I know many of you have learned important information from Modern Ferret magazine and from the FerretNews newsletter. What you may not know is that publishing controversial stuff is exhausting.

  It isn’t easy to accept some of the scathing attacks we’ve gotten -- from ferret owners, national ferret organizations, and local ferret clubs. But for all the hate mail, there was an equal or greater amount of kudos for dealing with difficult issues. We stand by what we’ve done. From poop to graphic pictures of ferret surgery (in our early issues, we published some veterinary-level articles because the vet journals wouldn’t) to famous people who might not have appealed to every reader -- we put it in there because sometimes people need to be shaken up.

  I’ve long believed that one of my main purposes in life is to shake up people -- to knock them out of their sleepy complacency. It’s all right; everyone falls into that stupefaction of day-to-day living. The difficulty in writing to the broad spectrum of types of people who are ferret owners is that you can’t please everyone. Sometimes you have to kick harder than some people need; sometimes you fail to wake up a good number of people who are clueless.

  Some of our recent newsletters were written by Eric, who is much less likely to pull punches than I am. Some readers were offended. But the truth is, those newsletters got a response. We woke up people who needed waking; we shook up people who needed shaking. We stand by those newsletters because we know we got through to people who we might not have gotten through to otherwise.

  Which brings me back to poop.

  If you want to see the “controversial poop pictures” from Modern Ferret Issue #1, you can -- you just have to get the Super Monster Pack of Modern Ferret Back Issues. It’s in there. Along with photos of ferrets playing on the couch, there’s also the controversial “Playboy Playmate” issue (with important news about adrenal disease), the controversial photos of ferrets in surgery, the controversial “Budweiser Ferret” issue, the controversial “jennicam” issue, the controversial PETA information ... you get the idea. Controversy is never a bad thing because it always serves to raise awareness: those who weren’t aware become aware and those who were aware are reminded that they need to get up and fight for what they believe.

  Oh, yeah, and there is a whole boatload of ferret information, training tips, cute-as-the-dickens ferret photos, and stories from other ferret owners that are just as relevant and important today as the day the magazines were published.

  Save $5.00 on the Super Monster Pack
[Please follow the link for current pricing.]

  Special savings -- no coupon required. Just go to the Ferret Trading Post and buy the Super Monster Pack of Modern Ferret Magazine Back Issues for $50.00. [Note: Click the link to see the current pricing.] It's our 100th FerretNews newsletter and we want you to celebrate great ferret-care information with us! This offer is good until April 7, 2005.

  Don't be one of those ferret owners. Be informed and ready for any ferret situation.

You can get a Super Monster Pack ! Not available anywhere else!
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  Thanks for reading yet another FerretNews newsletter! Look for more soon.

--Mary & Eric & Gabby, the lone modern ferret