A 15-year-old rule banning New Yorkers from keeping ferrets as pets is being considered to be repealed by Mayor de Blasio's administration, the Health Department said on Wednesday.
Implemented in 1999, the Giuliani administration banned the weasel-like carnivores since they posed a threat through the spread of diseases like rabies, NBC News reported.
Considered to be wild animals, the Bloomberg administration agreed several years later that they should not be kept as pets.
"Evidence shows ferrets do not bite more frequently or severely than other pets the same size," though they could be dangerous, particularly around babies, an internal Health Department memo obtained by The New York Times stated.
However, health officials would advocate and recommend lifting the no-ferret policy, which does not extend statewide, if changes include such requirements as rabies vaccinations, according to a spokesman for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Analyzing several other cities where keeping ferrets as pets is legal, authorities told the Times that they had not found many problems.
A rabies vaccine is also available now, they said.
KC Theisen, director of pet care issues at the Humane Society of the United States, said she welcomed the move, according to Reuters.
"We commend them for being cautious about public health and safety while trying to welcome more pets into people's homes," she said.
According to NBC News, Former Mayor Giuliani's apparent extreme distaste for pet ferrets was notoriously broadcast on his weekly radio show, when he told a ferret advocate protesting the ban, "There must be something deranged about you."
There was no "big ideological involvement" by Giuliani on the issue, he told the Times. He had been incited by the ferret advocate.
The Health Department's board is expected to begin considering the proposal by the summer. It said there would be a public hearing and comment period before a vote.
