A lot of these "ferret fears" come from ignorance about what happened in New Zealand in the late 1800s / early 1900s. Domestic ferrets were crossbred with Europ

A lot of these "ferret fears" come from ignorance about what happened in New Zealand in the late 1800s / early 1900s. Domestic ferrets were crossbred with European polecats and brought to New Zealand specifically to counter rabbit overpopulation. They introduced a man made killing machine to run through rabbit populations, and unsurprisingly the hybrid ferrets did the job very well. Now they thrive on the island as an invasive species. All that said, these ferrets are genetically distinct from domesticated ferrets. They are not remotely the same thing. A domestic ferret in the US would last all of 8 minutes in the wild.