By: Jesse Hathaway
Media Trackers
A recent Animal Liberation Front (ALF) announcement of a nighttime raid on a mink farm in Van Wert, Ohio has been disputed by the business’s management, who have not filed a police report in the matter. According to ALF and an affiliated extremist group, the farm is covering up activists’ success.
Aerial photograph of Lion Farms in Van Wert
On September 30, the North American Animal Liberation Press Office (NAALPO) shared an anonymous report from a local ALF cell, claiming that between 150 and 300 animals had been released from a “massive mink farm” in Van Wert in a September 29 raid.
ALF was founded in the 1970s, devoted to using ”direct action against animal abuse in the form of rescuing animals and causing financial loss to animal exploiters, usually through the damage and destruction of property.” NAALPO is a non-profit organization founded in the United states in 1994.
“‘The souls of the tortured dead cry out for justice. The cry of the living is for freedom. We can create that justice. We can deliver that freedom,’” the anonymous ALF author wrote, quoting convicted British eco-terrorist Barry Horne. “‘The animals have no one but us. We will not fail them.’”
Media Trackers spoke with “Tom,” who identified himself as an administrator at the Van Wert Lion Farms USA facility. Tom described as a “rumor” what ALF and its marketing affiliate bill as a successful operation, and he declined to give details.
Tom noted that “a mink can get out when we don’t close the gate” and speculated that a neighbor may have assumed multiple animals had been freed by ALF or some other group.
If nothing else, he said the supposed ALF raid was “a warning” his business would respond to with increased caution.
“So, we have to be careful. We will be careful now, from now on,” the Lion Farms USA administrator told Media Trackers.
NAALPO spokesman William Hazlitt, however, suggested to Media Trackers that the business and local authorities were likely covering up the “direct action” by ALF in order to save face.
“I would venture to say that it did occur, and that the fur farmer is probably hiding that fact, because he doesn’t want to attract any further attention,” Hazlitt said.
A dispatcher for the Van Wert County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the office had heard rumors of an attack on Lion Farms USA, but had no record of any crime reports from the farm’s address.