It's all over the internet... Romance novelist Cassie Edwards used entire passages from Paul Tolme's article in her book, Shadow Bear. Reading Paul's article about the incident in Newsweek had me laughing out loud.
"They are so named because of their dark legs," Shadow Bear says, to which Shiona responds: "They are so small, surely weighing only about two pounds and measuring two feet from tip to tail."
Shiona then tells Shadow Bear how she once read about ferrets in a book she took from the study of her father. "I discovered they are related to minks and otters. It is said their closest relations are European ferrets and Siberian polecats," she says. "Researchers theorize that polecats crossed the land bridge that once linked Siberia and Alaska, to establish the New World population."
I know that the language in romance novels can be often be stilted, but a pioneer woman talking about "Researchers theorize" and the Bering land bridge and "the New World" was just too funny.
That said, I'm glad she did it. Had she not, I might not have discovered Paul Tolme's articles, and that would have been unfortunate indeed. In addition to "Toughing It Out in the Badlands", which provided that scintillating post-coital conversation in "Shadow Bear", I highly recommend "Pure Poison" about proposals to kill thousands of prarie dogs in South Dakota. As any ferret fan knows, those endangered prarie dogs are vitally important to the survival of the black-footed ferret, the only native species of ferret we have.
In future entries, I will be writing more about this situation, as well as discussing the importance of the very same prarie lands these animals live on to our ecological well-being. In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy Paul Tolme's articles as much as I have, and be sure to visit his web site for even more great articles.
