Posted on 08/29/2003 9:10:49 AM PDT by presidio9
Days after 10,000 mink were released from a farm in southern Snohomish County, hundreds of the animals not yet captured have converged on local farms in search of food.
The animals had killed at least 25 exotic birds and attacked other livestock in the area.
"Over half our livestock was shredded. Murdered. Eaten alive," said Jeff Weaver, who discovered the dead birds on his farm Thursday. "These are not like regular farm animals. They're our pets."
Weaver, who breeds Indian Runner ducks and Banny chickens, said his field was full of the animals Thursday morning.
"One of the mink had part of a chicken in its mouth and was headed for the creek," he said. "They're starving. They'll kill anything in their path."
The mink also killed Weaver's geese, chicken and ducks, as well as wounded a dog and ate a 50-pound bag of bird feed. With an estimated loss of $2,000, he said he plans to improve fences, set traps and, if necessary, use a shotgun to fend off future assaults.
Diane and Joe Sallee are sealing their chickens in at night after they found the mink had killed six hens and injured several other that had to be euthanized.
"This has just devastated our chicken population. We are just so upset by this," Diane Sallee said. "The people who do these things don't think it through."
Animal activists argue that while the farm animals' deaths are unfortunate, it proves minks raised in captivity can survive in the wild.
"The amount of suffering that has been prevented by releasing them from cramped cages and freeing them from an extremely cruel death more than justifies a temporary disruption to the ecosystem," said veterinarian Andrew Knight, director of research at the Seattle-based Northwest Animal Rights Network.
Owners of the mink farm from which the animals were released estimate about 80 percent of the animals have been captured, leaving more than 1,000 unaccounted for, said Teresa Platt, executive director of Fur Commission USA. The commission is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrests and convictions of those responsible.
The FBI (news - web sites), which is leading the investigation, suspects an out-of-state group is responsible for the mink release at the Roesler Brothers Fur Farm off U.S. Highway 2.
The Animal Liberation Front, considered a domestic terrorist group by the FBI, has claimed responsibility.
Weaver argues that the group that released the animals didn't think of the repercussions.
"I'm not into anyone running around with fur coats on," he said. "But you cannot let 10,000 semicarnivorous animals out without having serious consequences."
Hoping...
Heh. I guess it’s a regional thing… we had “banny” chickens. At least that’s the way we pronounced it. Meanwhile, they were Bantam chickens in real life. But maybe there is such a thing as a Banny chicken.
It’s sort of like how we used to call a Brahman bull a “bramer” (sounds like bray-mer) bull. I was probably 16 years old and was at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and saw a leaflet that had a picture of a Brahman bull. I thought “they’re high – that’s a bramer.” But later I realized that our family was probably single-handedly destroying the English language. Ha.
They were able to hunt, catch and kill the 50-pound bag of bird feed. Those bags are pretty cunning in the wild.
I'll be finding time later, to send ya a FReep mail. LOL, I'm on 'stolen time' here, oldest daughter 'earned' 'puter time.
About ten years ago I took some young family members who wanted to see Spindletop out there.
I could not find it, per se! All that remained were a very few capped wells, several weed filled patches covering the still remaining pipelines, a marble monument marking the site and grazing cattle where once the tangled wooden derricks were.
A mighty big change just within 50 years!
Yet the environazis have convinced the spineless congresscritters that drilling in ANWR will destroy the entire earth!
It makes a nice lining around the hood of my parka. I think it's wolf fur.
This also proves that animal activists are primitive moral Utilitarians: their actions are rationally deficient and fallacious, thus they are acting immorally and have not yet begun to live like human beings.
You, sir, are worse than Hitler.
Oh, a communist then, eh?
I think you're correct.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.