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Add an EventAnimal Liberation Front Liberates Thousands of Captive Mink in Ohio
The two previous liberations this month were at Tonn's Mink Farm, 3270 Pigeon Run Road SW, in Massillon, Ohio, operated by Dennis and Wanda Tonn and Pipkorn in Powers, Michigan, run by Thomas and Steve Pipkorn.
Mink killers and their apologists will say the most ridiculous things to try and mitigate their losses after raids like these. In media accounts on this liberation alone, we have heard the following absurdities spouted as if fact, when in reality they are completely false:
• Many or most of the escaped animals were run over and killed by cars. One idiot even stated a snowplow was used to scoop up the bodies.
In reality, mink farms are located in rural areas with little traffic, mink are quick and solitary animals, and it beggars belief to imagine them aggregating in the road waiting to be run over by the rare passing vehicle. FALSE!
• Many or most freed animals returned to the farm for shelter or food, or because they loved their captors.
Very funny. And FALSE!
• Captive mink are domesticated.
Despite even generations in captivity, it has been shown scientifically that mink remain genetically wild, and studies with radio-collared mink demonstrate clearly the animals are capable of surviving in the wild. No, they won't starve or freeze to death. Seriously FALSE!
• Released captives are roaming the neighborhoods killing livestock, fish in koi bonds (you can't make this stuff up, and (gasp) family pets.
Captive, now free and wild mink disperse quickly and and are semi-aquatic animals who have no desire to be anywhere near humans and their "livestock" or pets. There may be some minimal impact on the local ecosystems temporarily while the animals disperse and learn their way around, but no habitats are decimated or overrun or rendered free of other small animals. And no, the animals do not kill wantonly and more than they need to survive, as one commentator had the audacity to suggest. FALSE!
Don't believe those who profit from animal abuse, or who just like to hear themselves spout off about things they know nothing about. And harbor, as we do, special disdain for supposed animal defenders who repeat their rhetoric.
The Animal Liberation Front and other anonymous activists utilize economic sabotage in addition to the direct liberation of animals from conditions of abuse and imprisonment to halt needless animal suffering. By making it more expensive to trade in the lives of innocent, sentient beings, they maintain the atrocities against our brothers and sisters are likely to occur in smaller numbers; their goal is to abolish the exploitation, imprisonment, torture and killing of all innocent, non-human animals. A copy of the Final Nail, a listing of known fur farms in North America, is available here: https://finalnail.wordpress.com/
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Animal Liberation Press Office
825-C Merrimon Avenue #121
Asheville, NC 28804
press [at] animalliberationpressoffice.org
Suspects destroyed fencing at Lion Farms USA Mink Farm in Hoaglin Township and released 25,000 to 40,000 mink from their cages at the farm, Van Wert County Sheriff Thomas Riggenbach said in a news release posted on the office's Facebook page Tuesday.
The incident, which is being considered a breaking-and-entering crime or vandalism, remains under investigation, Riggenbach said. But the office posted the information about the freed mink as soon as possible early Tuesday "to notify our communities what was going on," Riggenbach told USA TODAY. "So they could start making informed decisions and understand what had taken place."
When speaking about the animal agriculture industry (and its horrific impacts on the environment and animals), the focus is typically on those raised for the food system. But animals being used for fashion make up a significant portion of the cruel industry — which is why a group of animal activists just released minks from a fur farm Ohio.
Here’s what we know about this operation, the animal rights group behind it, and the fate of the estimated 10,000 minks who were released from the factory farm.
About 10,000 minks were just freed from an Ohio fur farm.
During the early hours of Tuesday, Nov. 15, a group of animal rights activists allegedly with the group Animal Liberation Front broke into the Lion Farms USA Mink Farm in Hoaglin Township, a tiny township in Van Wert County, Ohio, as reported by FOX 2 Detroit.
According to a Facebook post from Van Wert County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday morning, some fencing around the farm was torn down, and the activists freed between 25,000 and 40,000 minks from the cages they had been forced to live in. By the afternoon, the Sheriff estimated that only 10,000 minks were actually missing. All of these minks would have otherwise been killed for their fur.
Sheriff Thomas Riggenbach stated that as the minks ran away from the farm, so many were killed that officials had to use a snow plow to clear the dead bodies, as per ABC News. However, ALF refuted that claim, noting that Lion Farms is located in a rural area with very little traffic. And, even if the freed mink were to be killed by a passing car, animal control, or a natural predator, they would be suffering the same fate as they would have in the factory farm.
Additionally, the Sheriff warned that once-captive minks do not have the needed survival skills to make it in the wild; however, ALF believes this is false. A 2009 study published by Animal Liberation Frontline and Oxford University concluded that “farm-raised mink retain their wild instincts, and when released, can reassimilate successfully into their native habitat.”
That said, the Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident, and warning locals that minks are carnivorous animals, and can put other local wildlife, domesticated animals, and livestock at risk.
What is the Animal Liberation Front’s mission?
Animal Liberation Front is a movement made up of anonymous animal rights activists, who engage in direct actions to liberate animals from industries that subject them to abuse, exploitation, and suffering. The group is known for committing arson, destroying property, freeing animals, and other actions under the umbrella of “economic sabotage” — all in an effort to make “it more expensive to trade in the lives of innocent, sentient beings” for profit.
Though the group did not issue a direct statement confirming its involvement in the mink action this week, WANE 15 reported that “ALF” and “we’ll be back” were spray painted on the farm’s wall, near the cut in the fence.
Additionally, the North American Animal Liberation Press Office shared a press release confirming that ALF left its calling card spray painted on the wall at the “mink prison” known as Lion Farms.
“As the pelting season grows to a close, these animals were slated for certain death by anal electrocution, gassing or clubbing within the next few weeks, at the age of around seven months, when it is most profitable for their ‘owners’ to kill them,” the press office wrote, speaking about minks.
The press release went on to explain that despite claims from the fur industry, minks freed from imprisonment can survive in the wild.
“Despite being caged for their entire short and brutish lives, captive mink remain genetically wild, and have been proven capable of survival in the wild by the time they are several months old,” the statement added. “Don’t believe those who profit from animal abuse, or who just like to hear themselves spout off about things they know nothing about.”
With so many major fashion houses and stores going fur-free, it’s clear that the world is ready to make fur farms a trend of the past.
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