Hooligans Release as Many as 40,000 Minks From Ohio Farm

Between 25,000 and 40,000 minks were released from their cages by unidentified vandals in northwest Ohio on Monday night, authorities say. Van Wert County Sheriff Thomas Riggenbach said that staffers at the Lion Farms USA mink farm had corralled the vast majority of the furry creatures by Tuesday afternoon, but that as many as 10,000 animals—having bolted into the countryside—remained on the loose. Though Riggenbach warned local residents not to attempt to capture any minks themselves, news of their escape provoked dozens of Ohioans to go on the hunt, according to WTOL. So many loose animals were killed along U.S. Route 127 that the sheriff’s office had to call in a snow plow to remove the carcasses, the outlet reported. A motive for the break-in at the Hoaglin Township property, which lies about 15 miles from the Indiana state line, was not immediately disclosed by law enforcement. But a farm manager told WANE-TV that one of the vandals had spray-painted on a wall the letters “ALF,” presumably a reference to the Animal Liberation Front, the loosely-organized direct action animal rights group. Accompanying the letters was a warning message: “We’ll be back.”