If you look at Roman murals or medieval paintings that show different hunting scenes, always a popular subject, you will sometimes see both men and women carrying nets, and what look like long, thin cats, as they walk towards a rabbit warren to clear it out or, maybe, just take a few for food. Other scenes may show one of the people pushing the cat-like creature into one of the holes of the warren as, elsewhere; rabbits are jumping out of the other holes into the waiting nets that cover their escape route.
The
Ferret, our Unlikely Friend
If you look at Roman murals or medieval paintings
that show different hunting scenes, always a popular subject, you will
sometimes see both men and women carrying nets, and what look like long, thin
cats, as they walk towards a rabbit warren to clear it out or, maybe, just take a
few for food. Other scenes may show one of the people pushing the
cat-like creature into one of the holes of the warren as,
elsewhere; rabbits are jumping out of the other holes into the waiting nets that
cover their escape route.
The animals we see in these ancient
hunting scenes are not any kind of cat. They are ferrets: members of a
family of animals which includes the polecat, a wild ancestor of the ferret,
and so closely related that even DNA analysis has failed to show that they are
different species.
The polecat is a small but
very aggressive predator that
hunts smaller animals like rats, mice and birds. It likes to eat them whole,
including their fur and teeth. There are a number of different types
of polecat around
the world but the one that was domesticated into the ferret is,
basically, the European polecat. Although the European polecat originated in
Western Europe hundreds of thousands of years ago, it has become common in
North Africa and the Eurasian plains.
These little hunters were too small to
present any real danger to humans but their ability to empty a rabbit warren in
seconds was soon noticed. Roughly two and a half thousand years ago, or
more, human beings began to domesticate and keep polecats. This was almost certainly
for hunting. With time, the domestic polecats, or ferrets, changed
slightly in size and coloring but remained perfectly able to cross-breed
with their wild cousins.
These newly domesticated animals soon
became very useful, especially to the common people. In those days, the forests
were full of deer
and bison but
it took a rich man with servants, horses and dogs to catch and kill such large creatures.
The peasants,
men, women or older children only needed a few nets and one or
two ferrets to catch hundreds of rabbits at a
time. Ferrets were soon making a big contribution to the protein in the
diet of country people. And, there was also work for ferrets in the
towns and cities that were beginning to appear everywhere. Rats in urban centers
were becoming a health hazard and a pest as they stole from human
food stores and spread disease wherever they went.
Ferrets, again, were the ideal answer.
Just one or two could be sent into rats’ nests behind walls, in roofs and under
floors. The ferret’s thin body and very narrow head make it easy for it to
pass though tiny gaps; its very sharp teeth and its bloodthirsty temperament mean
that no rat will stay and fight while there is a chance of running away. And,
so, the rats would run – into the waiting nets of the rat-catcher, or the
strong jaws of
small dogs set to catch the vermin as they emerged.
Of course, the rats, little by little,
would always return but sometimes even the sharp, acrid smell of
the ferrets’ urine would be enough to keep the rats (and probably many
humans) from making a return visit. Rat-catchers, their dogs and
their ferrets were a common sight in cities until about a century
ago. (They’ve been replaced by better traps and better poisons.) And, of course,
rabbit-catchers, also with ferrets and dogs, can be seen in the
countryside even today.
But, there’s more
to ferrets than just hunting rodents. As their use in pest control
has declined,
so they have become more popular as pets. They are certainly very cute,
with their little faces and white or creamy brown fur but, they can
give a nasty
bite; and there’s still the problem of that unpleasant smell.
Less happily for ferrets, they
share certain metabolic points in common with human beings and this
makes them ideal for medical research, especially on new kinds of flu. So,
they can be very useful to people in a number of ways but they are not always
welcome everywhere.
In the late nineteenth century,
both ferrets and wild polecats were introduced into New
Zealand to help cut down on the number of feral rabbits that were
destroying crops and gardens, and the natural balance of these
islands. Ironically,
the rabbit had also been introduced by the same European colonists. They
now hoped that other ‘guests’, the ferret and the polecat,
would get
rid of the plague of rabbits; which they did.
Rabbit numbers soon dropped to
acceptable levels but, the ferrets and polecats, victims of their own
success, were left without an easy food source and went on to ravage the
small fauna of
New Zealand. The kiwi, a flightless bird that is the national symbol, was
especially vulnerable and
came close to extinction. All in all, it was an ecological
disaster; and similar stories unfolded across the globe as
the ferret was taken to different continents. Now, not just New
Zealand but also Australia, Brazil, Portugal, the U.S.A. and Japan have all
introduced strong laws banning ferrets or requiring them to be
‘doctored’
if they are kept as pets.
Once, the ferret played a key part in keeping the natural order in towns and countryside but, now, it is seen as a serious ecological threat.
Videos :
1. The Forgotten History of Ferrets (6:23)