40,000 MINKS FREED FROM OHIO FUR FARM BY ANONYMOUS ACTIVISTS
After demonstrators destroyed their enclosures, thousands of minks fled from an Ohio fur farm in the middle of November.
To inform locals, the Van Wert County Sheriff’s Office posted a notice on social media. It claimed that 40,000 animals had been released after the Lion Farms USA fur facility had been broken into.
The article depicted minks as a threat to other animals and called them “bothersome vermin.”
It stated that homeowners with ornamental ponds stocked with koi and other fish as well as poultry farmers have found minks to be particularly expensive and difficult to deal with.
A later report showed that while many minks had been recovered, about 10,000 were still missing. According to farm manager Eddie Meyer, domesticated animals have little chance of surviving because they have spent the majority of their lives in confinement.
Meyer told the television outlet WANE that he anticipated that 95% of them will pass away within a few days.
Animal cruelty in mink farming
Approximately three million pelts (complete animal skins, including fur) are produced annually by 250 mink farms in the US. These are mainly utilized to supply the fashion industry, which uses them to create coats and clothing trims.
Care in mink farms is often believed to be nonexistent because they are not protected by the Humane Slaughter Act or the Animal Welfare Act.
Similar to broiler chicken units, mink sheds are usually crowded, warm, and uninspiring. As a result, many animals attack humans or other animals in an effort to escape from this situation. Animals frequently die slowly and in pain without having their wounds attended properly.
Animals are commonly housed in tiny, empty wire cages that are stacked on top of one another.
This enables farmers to house as many animals as possible in a limited area until they are prepared for slaughter and skinning.
Anal electrocution, cervical dislocation, and mass gassings are common execution techniques.
Disease Breeding Grounds
In addition to moral issues, mink farms are hubs for the spread of illness.
Animals are housed in crowded, unclean environments where diseases can spread swiftly and evolve into new varieties. This was seen when the COVID-19 epidemic was at its worst, with farms reporting widespread illnesses everywhere. As a result, many minks were murdered, with more than 15 million being put to death in Denmark alone in 2020.
Unknown Animal Activists From Ohio
The letters “ALF” were purportedly spray-painted on the property by the activists who were in charge of releasing the 40,000 minks in Ohio.
This could be the Animal Liberation Front, often known as the ALF, an activist group that took credit for the prior release of 1,000 minks in Ohio. However, no claim for this occurrence has yet been submitted to the ALF.
Individual ALF members engage in decentralized activism and collective acts to liberate animals from captivity. Activities can be claimed by individuals, typically anonymously, after the fact, and nobody is in charge of leading the group in terms of organization.
In order to reduce the risk of zoonotic diseases, mink fur farming was also prohibited in several areas of the world. Notable inclusions include Sweden, British Columbia, Hungary, and Italy.