Sunday, April 25, 2010

Stamps to the Rescue!

Stamps to the Rescue!

The other day a friend of mine brought this news article to my attention:

Va. police find ferret in the mail


Stamps the ferret was shipped from a Lynchburg post office in a cardboard box stuffed with food, toy cars and a doll. The destination was a town near San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Stamps may have made it there -- had he stopped wiggling.


A postal inspector, David McKinney, got the call about it at his Roanoke office on the afternoon of Monday, April 5, hours after Stamps and the package had been deposited and $63.55 was paid for overnight delivery.


“The box was dropped off at 2 p.m., and it started moving about 5 p.m.,” McKinney said. “Periodically, it would just vibrate. The postal workers put their hand on the box and it kind of freaked them out.”

The story ended well, though:

McKinney took the ferret to the Roanoke Regional Center for Animal Control and Protection, where the fur ball stayed 13 days. On Monday he was moved to the Roanoke Valley SPCA, where attendants started calling him Stamps and he was put up for adoption.


“You'd be surprised. Some people just have a thing for ferrets,” said Bill Watson, executive director of the Roanoke Valley SPCA.


Indeed. Stamps clawed Wednesday onto the polo shirt of a ferret fan, Craig Bradley, who paid the $25 adoption fee and took him home to join the 16 ferrets in his house near Bonsack. (Bradley and his wife are co-founders of the Big Lick Ferret Shelter & Hospice.)

So imagine my surprise when I saw this headline today:

Stamps to the Rescue!

My first thought was, of course, Stamps the ferret! In actuality, though, it is the new stamp series issued last month by the U.S. Post Office to
“continue a Postal Service tradition of bringing attention to serious social issues of the day … one letter at a time,” said Potter. “This campaign will increase public awareness about sheltered pets and our hope is that it will encourage pet adoption and promote humane and responsible pet care.”
Now, if only the stamp series included a photo of Stamps the Ferret.

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