Stahl Fur Farm
For immediate release
September 18, 2023
Although an anonymous communique has yet to be received by the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, news media reports that the only remaining fur farm in Pennsylvania, Stahl Fur Farm, was raided this weekend and 6000-8000 captive mink destined to be killed in November were liberated. The farm owners told state police that the farm was vandalized between midnight and 6:50 a.m. on Sunday.
Joseph Buddenberg, a former member of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and a current press officer with the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, said the act was “certainly consistent” with the ALF, which opposes the exploitation and abuse of animals. The ALF most recently claimed responsibility for releasing 3,000 mink from a Wisconsin farm last month; last year, approximately 25,000 to 40,000 mink were released from a fur farm in Ohio and the perpetrators left spray-painted graffiti saying, “ALF” and “We’ll be back.”
Mink are genetically wild animals that roam up to 5 miles a day but are kept in 10-inch cages on fur farms; their treatment is egregiously cruel and violent. The mink are born in February or March and are killed in November for their fur, leading a miserable existence for eight to nine months. At least now they have a fighting chance at life; they faced a 100 percent death rate if they stayed on the farm.
Fur farmers 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 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 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 in order 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 50 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/