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A ferret has been rescued from an Edinburgh station after apparently getting off a train from London.

The male ferret, named Mickey by animal welfare officers, was found at Haymarket train station on Monday.

He appeared on platform four at about 1900 GMT when the train from London was in the station.

Staff managed to catch the ferret, which is now being cared for by the Scottish SPCA. The animal charity is urging his owner to come forward.

Insp Jenny Scott, of the Scottish SPCA, said: "When I arrived to collect the ferret the staff had managed to catch him and put him in a box.

"We're not sure if he has escaped from someone's house nearby or if he has ventured further and travelled all the way from England on the train.

"He's very friendly so he is obviously someone's pet.

"We'd love to return him to his owner as I'm sure they'll be missing him a lot."

The ferret is now being cared for at the charity's animal rescue and rehoming centre in Balerno.

Fare-dodging ferret reunited with his owner

An adventurous ferret that was found scurrying around a train station platform has been reunited with his owner.

It was thought that the animal ^ nicknamed Mickey ^ had got off the train from London when he was discovered at Haymarket station.

The Scottish SPCA were called to collect him at around 7pm on Monday. He has now been reunited with his owner after being spotted on the STV News.

Although he did not travel from England, it is still thought that the mammal caught the train to his final destination.

Mickey escaped from his home in the Stenhouse area of Edinburgh and it is thought that he jumped on the train from Slateford to haymarket.

A spokeswoman from the Scottish SPCA said: ^A friend of Mr Gibbon, the owner, saw the ferret on the STV news on Tuesday night. Scottish SPCA Chief Superintendent Mike Flynn was interviewed holding Mickey and someone who knew the man phoned him and said ^ve just seen your ferret on the news.^ Mr Gibbon was able to identify and describe the ferret accurately without seeing him. We are confident that it was his ferret so he collected him yesterday.^

^Ferrets are quite good escape artists. We aren^t sure if he escaped from his enclosure or if he was out already, but if you look on Google maps, the railway line does run in a straight line from Stenhouse to Haymarket. We think he may have just hopped on the train, because otherwise there would be a lot of main roads to cross and I wouldn^t have fancied his chances that way.^

Some of those links you found, Graham, are stoatally unacceptable.

I've spent the past two days trying to think up crap puns involving mink, ermine, polecat, marten etc without success.....

 :(