20/08/2023
Rocky Mountain Mink Refuge⬇️ These are my thoughts, too, and ultimately, one of the best written piece of information there ever was about "saving" an animal...
Last week, Linda Maretich of Rocky Mountain Mink Refuge and Mikayla Raines of Saveafox Corporation were interviewed by ABC News 19 in response to the release of 3,000 mink from a Wisconsin fur farm. View the news report in the comments below. Here's our in-depth response to the ethical issues of mass releasing fur farm mink:
There are a number of us that specialize specifically in working with displaced and rescued fur farm mink. We are intimately familiar with the behaviours, stressors, and drivers of fur farm mink and the differences between fur farm mink and the wild American mink. And we wholeheartedly appreciate most actions taken to end fur farming.
We do not... EVER... support or condone these direct action mass releases. Bluntly, it is a act of animal cruelty to release fur farm mink like this, and the people who do these mink releases should be prosecuted for federal animal cruelty.
Releases like this with mink are NOT a "liberation" in any way, shape, or form. You aren't "setting a mink free", you are condemning it to a *more* horrific death than the mobile gas chamber fur farmers use. That is saying something, because the mobile gas chambers are already not the most humane method of euthanasia.
We don't support breaking the law in general, but on this topic the law and ethics are two separate concerns, so we are not addressing the legal aspects of a release. We are speaking strictly to the ethics involved in this situation.
#1. When you choose to "liberate" an animal, it is your ethical responsibility to understand that animal's needs and behaviors, and what that animal will experience after liberation. It is your responsibility to understand and prepare to mitigate the stressors a mink will experience during a release. When you choose to open the door for a fur farm mink, it is your responsibility to understand that this is an animal that must remain in human care, it is NOT wildlife. It is your responsibility to understand the utter panic and stress that mink will feel post-release, and in order for a release to be ethical, it is your responsibility to mitigate that panic and stress.
#2. No captive bred and raised animal should ever be "liberated" unless there is a place lined up for it to go. When you choose to open a cage door, clip a chain, etc and remove/release an animal from it's current situation, that animal's welfare then becomes YOUR responsibility. It is your job, your ethical responsibility to keep that animal safe from harm and free of stressors. It is your ethical responsibility to ensure it has daily food, water, shelter, and medical care. If you cannot provide or arrange these things, your actions then become cruel and unethical- you should not be depriving that animal of the care it requires. When you release a domestic fur farm mink without having a place prepared for that mink, you are depriving this domestic animal of shelter and a reliable food source. Don't release it if you can't provide for it!
#3. When you choose to open those cages and dump a massive number of these animals into the environment, you need to realize that you are potentially causing an ecological disaster. Fur farm mink can carry a parvovirus called ADV, or "Mink Aleutian Disease". This virus can be EASILY spread to native wildlife. There is no ethical rationalization for intentionally releasing such a terrible potential ecological disaster. It has also become evidently clear that mink are capable of contracting and spreading the deadly H5N1 virus, known as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. This virus has an extremely high fatality rate in birds and mammals alike. Then there is also COVID, which can easily spread on mink farms and, with a mass release, spill out and spread to wildlife including mustelids, canids, fields, and even cervids.
#4. When you choose to open these cages and unethically dump these domestic animals into the wild, you are condemning most of them to suffer or die, with broken mangled bodies, on the roadside. You are condemning them to being shot at, chased, poisoned, ripped apart by dogs. You are condemning them to slowly waste away and starve to death. Have you even tried to bring a displaced domestic mink back from starvation, watching helplessly as it's organs shut down? Many of these mink have zero idea how to hunt, being from captive, selectively breed lines going back 150 years. Again, these are NOT wild animals! They are domestic. A handful *may* survive, but thousands will endure intense panic, pain, and suffering.
#5. If by some chance some of these domestic mink DO manage to survive in the wild, do you understand that you are potentially exposing native wild American mink to horrific and debilitating genetic conditions? Genetic issues that are exclusive to farm mink? Genetic issues that wild mink don't normally suffer from? Do you realize that your actions could doom the future health of wild mink in the area? Have you had to deal with medically treating debilitating genetic issues in fur farm mink? We have. These genetics should NOT be introduced to native wild mink. It dooms future generations to shorter lifespans and intensely painful ailments.
When you choose to open those cages and walk away at the end of it...
The fur farmer files an insurance claim. They get a payout.
The "cause" suffers damage, and animal welfare activists take a hit to their credibility due to your unethical, careless, and ignorant actions.
The mink go through elevated levels of stress and pain, and often meet a MORE brutal end than they would on the farm (as horrific as farm life and death already is).
Mink, as a species, go through another wave of being villainized and treated like trash (this impacts native wild mink as well). This actually jeopardizes mink that are currently safe in the care of rescues and sanctuaries - acts like this release increase the risk of enacting laws that will declare mink as injurious, and will likely force mink in sanctuary care in some states to be euthanized.
And the rescuers, the wildlife rehabilitators- we scramble to triage the horrible mess you've created and try to actually SAVE some of these mink. We respond to the messages and pick up/intake, frantically network for fosters remotely. Rush mink to the vet, fill their bellies, keep them safe, test them for ADV. Rescues foot the bill -physically, emotionally, monetarily- for your shortsighted, unethical follies.
So as far as we are concerned this is not even remotely a debatable topic. People who open the cages and walk away are guilty of horrific animal cruelty and ecological destruction. They damage the fight to end fur farming. Their actions are selfish and utterly without ethical consideration. Their intentions, however noble, frankly do not matter, this. is. cruelty.
Animal activism should not involve cruelty, it should not involve killing innocent animals and risking the fate and future of our native wildlife.
