1000 Captive Mink Liberated From Mink Farm in Woodbine, Iowa

Although an anonymous communique has yet to be received by the Press Office, animal liberation activists have apparently freed 1000 captive mink from David Tremel Fur Farm (2017 Troy Trail Woodbine, IA 51579), according to Fur Commission USA and local news sources. Cages and fences confining the hapless animals were also sabotaged. This is the second fur farm raid in the last week, as pelting season begins soon, when hundreds of thousands of fur-bearing animals will be killed for their skins.

The fur profiteer has apparently made the ludicrous claim that half the animals were recaptured, as if these genetically wild animals were hanging around to return to the tiny, abysmal cages where they spend their entire short lives. All the animals were due to be executed and skinned for their fur within the next month.

Mink are genetically wild animals that roam  miles every day when living in the wild, but are kept in 10-inch cages on fur farms; their treatment is egregiously cruel and violent. Born in February or March, they are killed by gassing, clubbing or anal electrocution in November, before being skinned, sometimes while still alive, for their fur. The animals liberated yesterday have a fighting chance at life, whereas they faced a 100 percent death rate if they stayed on the farm.

Mink killers and their apologists often say the most ridiculous things to try and mitigate their losses after raids like these. Sample absurdities spouted as fact include:

•     Many or most of the escaped animals were run over and killed by cars.
  In reality, fox and mink farms are located in rural areas with little traffic, the animals 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 fox and 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 fox and mink 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!

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.

The number of fur farms in America has dwindled from more than 300 in the 1990s to less than 100 today, as the fur industry continues its steady decline into oblivion. A listing of all  known fur farms in North America, is available here: https://finalnail.com/