From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2001-04-19 21:48:00 UTC
Subject: Re: New girl in town (Albinism)
Brett wrote:
>This still qualifies as a congenital defect, of course, and is
>associated with vision problems resulting from abnormal retinal and
>optic-nerve development. However, albinism doesn't seem to have a very
>significant impact on the health and well-being of domestic ferrets...
An engineer I used to know who was an albino told me that he had to
take extra precautions against the sun, too, not only due to burning
and related skin diseases, but because it increased his chances of
developing cataracts. True? If so, I guess that perhaps we have to
consider that vision aspect (though they really don't usually seem to
mind vision loss much at all) and the skin disease aspect in daily
actions with albino ferrets, or perhaps not since their lives are
shorter (giving less chance to develop skin cancers) and vision less
important in their sensory menu?