Ferrets weren’t always the easy going (haha) little guys we see today. They used to serve a very important purpose to their owners. Its not completely clear why we domesticated the ferret, but we are fairly certain it had something to do with hunting.
As we know, ferrets are most likely domesticated Polecats. We think they were domesticated over 2500 years ago. Its claimed that the Egyptians did it first (aren’t they the first for everything?). Although, there isn’t any physical evidence currently.
We all know that our long, lean ferrets get themselves into trouble. They used to be used for chasing rodents, rabbits and moles from underground. They’ve even been used to control rabbit plagues.
Ferrets were introduced here in America in the 17th history and were used through the start of World War 2 to protect grain stores from rodents.
Ferrets have other (unfortunate) jobs as well. They are used as an animal model of human influenza. We all know that when we have the flu, to stay away from our beloved ferrets since they catch it so easily. Ferrets have been used for other areas of research as well because they share many anatomical and physiological features with humans.
It’ll be interesting to know, what history will uncover about our little weasels. They sure have been here a long time.
