Author: earthfirst

The Amer­i­can Mink is native to North Amer­i­ca, and can sur­vive in the wild after release from cap­tiv­i­ty

“On the evening of July 28, 2013, friends of wildlife entered the Bur­ley, Ida­ho, mink farm of Fur Com­mis­sion USA Board Mem­ber Cindy Moyle, com­pro­mised the perime­ter fenc­ing, and set up rov­ing sur­veil­lance of the on-site night watch­man. We then lib­er­at­ed the entire­ty of her breed­ing stock into the wild, emp­ty­ing over twen­ty-five per­cent of this wildlife prison.

Illu­mi­nat­ed in the moon­light, 2400 of these wild crea­tures climbed out of the cages where they had passed their entire lives in iso­lat­ed dark­ness, to feel the grass under their feet for the first time. Their ini­tial timid­i­ty quick­ly became a cacoph­o­ny of glee­ful squeal­ing, play­ing, cavort­ing, and swim­ming in the creek that runs direct­ly behind the Moyle prop­er­ty. They will live out their new lives along the Snake Riv­er water­shed.

Cindy Moyle is a cur­rent Board Mem­ber, and for­mer Trea­sur­er, of the Fur Com­mis­sion USA. After the recent lead­er­ship shuf­fling in FCUSA, we felt that the Moyle Mink Ranch would be per­fect to test out the effi­ca­cy of FCUSA’s new empha­sis on farm security.The Moyles are a mink dynasty in Ida­ho, oper­at­ing up to eight farms, their own in-house feed oper­a­tion, and a tan­nery. Those doubt­ful of our resource­ful­ness and guile have in the past called the Moyle farms impen­e­tra­ble. Indeed, this is the first time that any­one has attempt­ed action against one of them.

Hav­ing now had the plea­sure of test­ing them our­selves, we whole­heart­ed­ly approve of the new FCUSA secu­ri­ty guide­lines. We are hap­py to see FCUSA mem­bers increas­ing their over­head on secu­ri­ty – it means they are only that much clos­er to bank­rupt­cy when we raid their farms. In the case of the Moyles, the breed­ing records we destroyed rep­re­sent over thir­ty years of painstak­ing genet­ic selec­tion. There will be no recov­er­ing these genet­ic lines.

Aside from their oper­a­tions harm­ing help­less ani­mals, the Moyles have also been fed­er­al­ly inves­ti­gat­ed for exploit­ing undoc­u­ment­ed work­ers and traf­fick­ing endan­gered species. Mike Moyle, ex-mink farmer and the cur­rent Ida­ho House Major­i­ty Leader, has used his polit­i­cal posi­tion to block Ida­ho neigh­bor­hoods from being able to declare his family’s foul and fly- infest­ed pris­ons to be pub­lic nui­sances.

The fur indus­try will no doubt prop­a­gate false­hoods regard­ing this act of kind­ness.

They will claim that we are ter­ror­ists. We say that if peace­ful­ly open­ing cages is an act of ter­ror­ism, then the word has no mean­ing. It is appro­pri­ate­ly applied to the mass impris­on­ment and killing of wild ani­mals.

They will claim that these mink are domes­ti­cat­ed ani­mals and will starve. Doc­u­men­ta­tion on the suc­cess of farm-bred mink in the wild is exten­sive, so we will add only our expe­ri­ence watch­ing these nat­u­ral­ly aquat­ic ani­mals, who had spent their entire lives in cages, head instinc­tive­ly for water and begin to swim and hunt.

They will claim that con­di­tions on mink farms are humane. We ask why, then, they try only to hide those farms from the pub­lic, push­ing for leg­is­la­tion to crim­i­nal­ize the tak­ing of pho­tographs. The mink that we freed from the Moyles lived in inten­sive con­fine­ment in their own waste. Their suf­fer­ing was plain to the eye, and their yearn­ing for free­dom plain to the soul.

They will say that our raid may inspire copy­cat actions. We say that it undoubt­ed­ly will. It is a glo­ri­ous thing that we live in a world where indi­vid­u­als reg­u­lar­ly demon­strate the ulti­mate act of com­pas­sion – risk­ing their free­dom for the free­dom of oth­ers.

They will say that we will not stop short of the com­plete and total end of the killing of ani­mals for their fur. On this point we are in total agree­ment.

We act with love in our hearts.”