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The Canada Mink Breeders Association is offering up a $100,000 reward for any information leading to the capture of what it calls the \u201canimal rights extremists\u201d\u00a0responsible for releasing 500 minks from a\u00a0southwestern Ontario farm.<\/p>\n
Ontario Provincial Police were called to the\u00a0farm in Brant County after a report of a break-in Saturday morning, after holes were cut into the walls of the farm and minks were let out of their cages.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are shocked that any person or group would commit such a cruel and irresponsible act. Most of these mink were nursing females; their newborn kits are all under two weeks old \u2013 some are only days old,\u201d CMBA President Marianne Patten said in a release.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u00a0are completely dependent on their mothers for warmth and frequent feeding at this stage and many will die.\u201d<\/p>\n
The CMBA said a group calling itself the \u201cWillow Pond Mink Freedom Movement\u201d claimed responsibility for the \u201cfarm invasion\u201d by posting on an animal \u201cextremist website<\/a>\u201d that allegedly publicizes animal rights and criminal activities against the use of animals for food or other purposes.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a despicable and irresponsible act,\u201d Kirk Rankin, an Ontario mink farmer and former president of the CMBA, said in the\u00a0statement.<\/p>\n \u201cSeveral Ontario farms were attacked like this last summer. These criminals don\u2019t think that people have a right to use animals, fine, but these are domesticated animals that have been raised on farms for more than 100 generations.<\/p>\n \u201cThey cannot fend for themselves in the wild, so most will die. And the few that do survive will endanger domesticated ducks or chickens in the region. Releasing nursing females is cruel and just plain stupid.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But OPP Const.\u00a0Ken Johnston said investigators don\u2019t\u00a0have any confirmation that the release of the mink was done by an animal extremist group.<\/p>\n \u201cAt this point we\u2019re following every lead we have,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re not tunnel visioning and only looking at animal activist groups, we\u2019re looking at everything.\u201d<\/p>\n The CMBA said the\u00a0standards of care for raising farmed mink in Canada are set out in a newly revised Code of Practice<\/a>\u00a0prepared by\u00a0the National Farm Animal Care Council.<\/p>\n The not-for-profit association said the value of Canadian fur exports topped $300 million in 2015, with mink produced on more than 200 farms across Canada.<\/p>\n It added that more than 60,000 Canadians work in various sectors of the fur trade, as trappers, fur farmers, craftspeople and other support sectors.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [Press Office Note:\u00a0Imprisoned in cages for life, or mercilessly trapped with painful leghold traps in the wild,\u00a0 fur-bearing animals killed to make unnecessary fashion statements are forced to endure intensive confinement, compared to the miles of territory these still-wild animals would enjoy in their natural state. The natural instincts of these captive animals are completely frustrated; self-mutilation, sickness, infection, poor sanitation and the sheer stress of confinement lead animals in captivity to premature death. When they do survive, animals of sufficient size are killed by anal electrocution or gassing, then skinned. In addition to liberating the wild animals destined for a certain, painful and agonizing death, another goal of liberationists is to cause economic damage to fur retailers and farms; dozens of stores and fur farming operations have seen economic ruin since “Operation Bite Back” began by the Animal Liberation Front in the 1990s.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Those concerned with the truth should not be misled by claims of those with economic interests, for instance ridiculous stories that the animals released are domesticated and unable to survive in the wild, or that the animals voluntarily returned to their cages, or that they froze to death or starved within hours, or were immediately run over by automobiles or eaten by household pets. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n 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 innocent, non-human animals. A copy of the Final Nail, a listing of known fur farms in North America, is available from the Press Office website at www.animalliberationpressoffice.org<\/a>]<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Canada Mink Breeders Association is offering up a $100,000 reward for any information leading to the capture of what it calls the \u201canimal rights extremists\u201d\u00a0responsible for releasing 500 minks from a\u00a0southwestern Ontario farm. Ontario Provincial Police were called to the\u00a0farm in Brant County after a report of a break-in Saturday morning, after holes were … <\/p>\n