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Animal Liberation Front Raids Co. Laois Fur Farm
 national |
animal rights |
news report
 Monday February 24, 2003 17:54 by Alliance For Animal Rights - Alliance For Animal Rights afar1dublin at hotmail dot com PO Box 4734, D. 1
On Friday morning the Alliance For Animal Rights received the following report regarding a mink liberation action in Co. Laois. There are five mink farms and two fox farms in the Republic. This action has received coverage in many national newspapers. ANIMAL LIBERATION FRONT RAIDS CO. LAOIS FUR FARM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday 19th February 2002
In the early morning hours of Wednesday 19th February the Animal Liberation Front removed sections of a perimeter fence surrounding a mink farm based in Ballymanus, Stradbally, Co. Laois. Upon entering the premises we opened the cages of approximately 1000 animals, allowing them to disperse freely and safely along the route of the Grand Canal.
Our motivation was that of putting compassion over greed, of pity over barbarity and of freedom over exploitation. Fur farming has no place in any "progressive" society. Mink, who naturally roam up to 6 kilometers a day and spend 60% of their active time hunting and playing in water are confined to bare cages no longer than one's arm. They are known to defend their territory with radius of 6 kilometers, but on fur farms are forced to withstand the presence of up to 45,000 other mink in close proximity.
Steriotypies, acts of repetitive abnormal behaviour (such as constant pacing or circling of the cage, gnawing of bars, etc.) were of course prominent, although we witnessed a greater evidence of their suffering. Many animals bore self-inflicted flesh-wounds and mutilations to the extreme that some had actually chewed off their own tails*. Disease was rampant. A number of animals appeared to be missing large tufts of fur from their bodies*. Dead and rotting mink littered the compound* and piles of excretement lay beneath each cage* - hardly fitting for animals highly sensitive to the presence of others.
When their time comes the mink will be removed from their cages, thrown en masse into a gas chamber, suffocated and skinned. BOC Gases are the providers of the lethal carbon monoxide to this concentration camp.
No doubt there will be those who will criticise our action in the belief that the freed mink will destroy local wildlife populations, however we would not have taken such action were this to be true. Irish mink expert Chris Smal states "mink ultimately control their numbers... wherever mink establish themselves the numbers soon stabilize... Many of the prey species taken by the mink are well able to sustain the pressure that the new predator puts upon their populations... The mink takes its place alongside the country's native predators and does not merit its somewhat awesome bloodthirsty reputation".
While Europe is making animal welfare progress, Ireland stays behind. Austria, the UK, Scotland and Northern Ireland have already outlawed the practice of fur farming while Sweden, Switzerland and Italy have effectively banned it through tough preventative legislation and other countries (such as Holland, Germany and Norway) are now considering a total ban. Meanwhile the Irish government chooses to ignore such considerations. If the major centre and left parties of Holland, a country with 2.9 million mink on 208 farms, press for a complete ban (it has already banned fox and chinchilla farming), then Ireland with its 140,000 mink and 1,700 fox on 5 farms has no excuse that banning this cruelty would have anything more than negligible economic repercussions.
Currently no license is required for farming of fox in Ireland, while for mink the license agreement does not take animal welfare into issue. Indeed, the Irish government is actively supporting the practice by supplying yearly grants to many of Ireland's fur farms. When the rest of Europe prohibits fur farming, will Ireland be the only haven that allows it?
We have taken this action to highlight the government's inaction. Minister Joe Walsh is a puppet to agri-business - too cowardly and and too biased to allow animal cruelty to be an issue when 64% of the population is opposed to the practice of fur farming+. We refuse to allow this to continue. This is the first animal liberation action against fur farming, but as long as fur farming remains legal we shall be here...
When darkness falls,
A.L.F. * see evidence in pictures on accompanying compact disc
+ Irish Marketing Surveys Ltd
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Comments (24 of 24)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24Releasing 1000 mink into the wild, jesus christ, do you people have any idea what that's going to mean for the local ecosystem?
Where do you people get your knowledge of the environment, Disney?
Hope you all sleep well knowing the destruction you've just unleashed on local flora and fauna.
Thousands of Ireland's indiginous wildlife species have just been condemned to lives of terror and death that will never go away!
These mink will breed and spread and kill every bit of local furry fauna they can get their little pointy teeth in to.
A very stupid action for a very worthy cause.
while I applaud the fact that the ALF are willing to make sure these poor beasties aren't tortured and the farmers are discouraged from their activity by economic losses.
Wouldn't spray paint on the fur to ruin their economic value be useful? (On the other hand I can see that then the mink would be destroyed in some horrible manner).
Hmm. Is there any data on the effects of mink release on indigenous wildlife? Do bird populations sustain damage?
Well done realeasing a hundred natural predators into the wild.These bad temperd rodents will decimate any bird and wildlife left that pollution missed in the area.
Yes bird pouplations get severly damaged in an area where mink are set loose.Especially waterfowl as mink are exellent swimmers.
"Animal welfarism" is NOT "environmentalism". Just because SOME individuals are involved with both and just because SOMETIMES they may be allies on a particular issue does NOT make these identical concerns. And a case like this action points that out most clearly.
OF COURSE releasing 1000 mink in a small area is environmentally insane. It would be even here where mink are not exotics (I can sometimes see one working the stream edge or crossing our driveway from my window).
As anybody who has ever worked with lab animals knows, the usual way to mark them is with pictric acid. No, it won't burn them (it's a very weak acid) but stains the fur yellow and is NOT removable by anything.
Downside --- technically Pictric Acid is an explosive. Perfectly safe to handle in small quantities as long as not kept in a metal container as it is VERY insensitve and hard to detonate (but metal pictrate salts are not). So I bet they'd slap on "explosives" charges if they caught you with this stuff.
Of course I meant to type "picric" (those who know how the metal salts of this acid are named will understand)
Mink are not a natural part of the Irish eco-system.
They were introduced by accident and have bred and bred and together with another rather virulent strain of introduced species "the grey squirrel" have been identified as the main cause of indignous species depletion.
This was a silly action.
Ireland has lots of wild animals such as large cats and other exotics that are kept in disgraceful conditions and were smuggled into the state from Northern Ireland after the UK strengthened their laws on "domestic bigcat" keeping. It would be a good use of "ALF" energy to find those animals. It would also be good use of "ALF" energy to think about the battery and intensively farmed animals in Ireland, there are many. I remember the day of the Farmers protest in Dublin leaving details of the largest Battery Hen Farm in the state.
And it strikes me as near insanity to offer "ALF" any technical/practical advice on the Metalic salts. The last thing Ireland needs is an ALF with a military wing.
It is so good to see so many condemn this stupity. I actually stopped being so involved with animal rights when a group of my associates splintered off into the ALF (oh dear someone will know who I am now - what a shame). This sort of action is - to borrow a word used repeatedly above - moronic.
Does the wildlife suffer? Oh yes! just ask the water vole population of the Thames. Do birds suffer? Oh yes! Just ask the duck population of the Thames. But it is the likes of the water vole that suffer most.
This action has saddened me greatly and brought back memories both great and equally sad in some cases.
One thing it has done though is to let me know that there are fur farms in Ireland (I'm a recent British refugee - fleeing mad Tont and gaining arsehole Ahern!) and I shall now join the sensible fight to get these banned.
I've taken my coat off and rolled up my sleeves ... right ... where's my pen?
"Ipsifi" --- Sorry if anybody misunderstood that as a suggestion about how to make a (useful) explosive. Easy to forget how little knowledge of basic Chemistry might be out there. Take my word for it, neither picric acid nor metal pictrates are useful for the amateur bomber (much too hard to detonate on one hand and much too easy and unpredictable on the other). I wouldn't be giving out any useful bomb making advice -- except perhaps "first study chemistry" (I guess there can be no exception taken to THAT suggestion).
A safe "pictrate" dye is the commom burn medicine Butesin Pictrate. Being an ointment it is easier to handle than the liquid picric acid. My reason for mentioning picric acid to dye animal fur was simply because it's what has been "stnadard" to indelibly mark lab animals -- works well.
What were you thinking?
The mass release of these mink is by no means an ideal solution to the factory farming and the little savages will undoubtedly play havoc for a short time in the local area, but nature tends to balance these things out. In overall terms the effect will be negligible certainly compared to the effect factory farming has on the area and the globe.
I for one find it hard to get outraged by this "irresponsible" action as at least somebody has decided to get up and do something to a) smack these bastards where it hurts, in the pocket, b) the mink have been freed from their death camp,l and c) publicity achieved about these barbarities.
There are enough parties and interests ready to clamber over each other and point out how "idiotic" this action was (do you really believe the people concerned didn't realise how unnatural it was to release hordes of mink in the one area?), but has anyone a better alternative?
;-) nice one Mike!
WE ARE A FAMILY WEBSITE!
All right then, it's clear that the gobshites who carried out this lunacy have no regard for the local ecology, or for other species that will be affected by this.
I'll pose another question then. What good will this action do for the released mink?
- Every shotgun in the area will be now used in exterminating the little buggers.
- Those that are not shot will have to survive in a situation where they are clearly overpopulated. Most of them will either die from disease, or each other's predations.
What difference does releasing these mink make, if you disagree with fur-farming, why not take action to get it stopped legally, or are you just simple-minded, attention-seeking vandals?
My money is on the latter.
Releasing a 1000 mink.....Jesus what were you thinking?
That expert is wrong.
Adding yet another predator to the scenario where birds are already being depleted by pollution and habitat loss is nuts and irresponisble.
You broke the law.You did so for your own moral values and not those of the greater public at large.
You took descisions out of the publics hands and have caused a mini natural disaster at the same time.
And it will do you no good.
In the near future the governement will be called upon to control all of the foreign introduced animals to the utmost levels in order to conserve birds and other wildlife.
Mink,Grey squirrel and Feral cats will be exterminated.
And it is just you kind of furry loving morons that will oppose such a progressive and eco system saving motion.
Pariah
I met some folks in Scotland once who used to smash the windows of fur shops. They'd smash them and leave a note to say "stop selling fur or we'll smash your windows again". Then the shops would install new windows and the animal rights activists would return a few days later. They say that they actually ran a few businesses out of town.
Once the mink have been forced into the factories it's a little too late to do anything, unless you can find a suitable alternative habitat for them. If you want to hit the cruel farmers where it hurts without damaging the environment you could try sabotaging other parts of their business (transport, marketing, sales, etc.). Check that they're not breaking some planning law. Make sure their waste discharge license (if they need one) is in order... etc.... The sort of teamwork and prep needed to pull off a good "animal liberation" action could be used instead for nonviolent "get the bastards!" actions.
That said, I think it's great to see people doing nonviolent direct actions for environmental causes in Ireland. There are environmental NGOs here who have expert knowledge of species and habitats in danger. Get in touch with them and offer your services! That's sorta how Greenpeace works you know!!
Pariah? Hmmmm, smells fishy. Sabwatch under another name yet again? Yep!!!!
I think it is WONDERFUL that you freed the minks.
The Bible says that a righteous man cares for the life of his beast.
I am part Irish myself. Are not a vast majority of Irish people believers in Gods word. If they are they should care about the feelings of the animal.
Here is the USA we gave a saying WHAT WOULD JESUS DO.
HIS WORD ALREADY TELLS US WHAT TO DO!
I am a great animal lover.
I even know that God made a covenant with the animals after the flood.
God Bless
Maylene in USA
I don't agree with animals being needlessly butchered so fat cats and their silicon wives can wear their skins, sick bastards. However I disagree with your "experts" assurance that a mass Mink release will have no impact on indiginous wildlife. Have you ever met a Mink, they are one of the most ferocious creatures who would gladly see off one of your fingers, then another etc. I am confident the local wildlife will be none too happy with your willingness to sacrifice them to save the Mink. Touch of Robinhood here me thinks.
Ernst
To all of you who are complaining about minks: get an education, please. The human race is a far greater threat to all animals than any mink. The fact that you would rather be able to murder animals on your own instead of letting nature take it's course is sickening and disgusting. I do not understand how people who would rather see animals starved, beaten, and skinned alive can sleep at night or look themselves in the mirror.
Please, educate yourself, and next time you want to complain about a NATURAL predator taking the course of nature, maybe you should look at the meat on your plate or the fur in your closet.
yez can all back off the ALF.these people risked their ives and freedon to take action and ensure these mink got to live out the rest of their ives instead of being brutally and painfuly saughtered for the fashion industry and you lot have the cheek to criticise them!!! i understand the environment is now at risk but the ALF is not to blame for saving the lives of the mink.the fur farmers are the ones to bame for bringing the unative mink to ireand its their faut not the ALF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I would be totally anti-fur myself and factory farming of all types but releasing these creatures in such a manner was highly irresponsible. Just to clarify a few bizarre comments on here, firstly mink are a member of the weasel family and are not rodents, secondly the species in question is the American mink and is therefore a foreign exotic and agressive coloniser just like the grey squirrel. In fact its even more destructive than the latter species. Birdwatch Ireland consider this species to be a major factor in the steep decline over the last few years of a number of breeding wader and duck species. Notably the Common Scooter, a type of duch whose breeding population has now fallen to a critical 15 pairs on the great lakes in the west of ireland due to high levels of nest predation by mink who will also kill the adults if given the chance.
Fur farmers are the REAL threat to ecosystems and environment! not minks!
I loved reading about this brave and praiseworthy action. What I didnt love was reading the mindless comments from the typical conventional idiots who oppose this sort of thing .It was disheartening to see so much critiscism of a clear act of mercy .Alright, so some of these animals will inevitably die ( thanks to the hideous and unnatural conditions in which they were kept in the first place ) but they will die free , and even better, make no money for the fascist scum who profit from their blood . ALF , bravo ! take no notice of negative remarks, the world is full of idiots . And Mike, where do you find that staining stuff i would like to get my hands on some .