We need tighter controls to ensure the risks for our birdlife and to our farming industries are minimised.
Ferrets are the largest of the mustelid family, which also includes stoats and weasels.
The animals were first introduced to New Zealand from Europe in the 1880s, to control rabbits, but proved unsuccessful. They became an ecological disaster and are primarily responsible for the collapse of species like the kakapo, weka, blue duck, kiwi and black stilts. They are also killers of kereru, tuis, robins, penguins, albatross and teal. The fetish people have for keeping ferrets as pets cannot be allowed to put our native wildlife at risk. We must learn from the bad experience of the 1980s, when ferret farming went through the boom-bust cycle and resulted in hundreds of ferrets being released in the wild.