Sporting Answers: Locating a lost ferret

A) A responsible ferreter should never go ferreting without a fail-safe method of locating and retrieving his ferrets. A ferret finder is akin to wearing a seat belt when driving. The ferret finder was initially designed to help find a lost or errant ferret or to locate a “bottledup” ferret so that after a dig one could retrieve not only the ferret but also the rabbit in the blank end. Over a season, it is surprising how many extra rabbits are accounted for in this way.

Unfortunately, some ferreters never give their animals enough time to work a warren before getting out their finders and searching for what is probably a moving animal, so get the wrong signal. It is all down to styles of ferreting and motivation. When used correctly, the finder confirms that something is not right and if you need to move on or go home you have a method of finding and retrieving your ferret. After decades of ferreting I have yet to see a consistent alternative to the ferret finder.

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About the author

Simon Whitehead

A Suffolk-based professional ferreter and rabbit controller, author and Shooting Times contributor, Simon is known widely as The Ferret Man and acknowledged as the last full-time warrener operating in Britain. Born in Middlesbrough in 1968, he moved with his parents to Suffolk in 1984 after the collapse of Cleveland's steel industry, and turned a boyhood fascination into a business in 2001, demonstrating ferreting at country shows nationwide through the summer and controlling rabbits in rural and urban East Anglia through the winter. Simon has become ferreting's premier demonstrator in the UK, sits on the Shooting Times expert panel and writes regularly for the magazine. He is the author of four books, including Ferreting: An Essential Guide, published by Crowood, and Ahead of the Game, celebrating wild rabbit as food, and has appeared in television programmes on rabbit management.

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