Just seen where 25 to 40K mink were released

Here in Ohio, Van Wert County, holy molly. Ack, your gonna be busy lol.

LINK

Wow. I hope whoever did that is charged under full penalty of the law.

I definitely see Ack smiling ear to ear!!

That's a lot of mink. I know nothing about mink. I wonder how many wild mink are in Ohio--for reference?

I wonder if the mink huggers calculated how much food those mink will find in the wild after being fed every day.

I predict there will be lots of road kill mink in that area.

As a general rule, ranch raised mink are not able to survive in the wild. They are used to being fed on a regular schedule and not having to hunt for their food.

I already read an article on it. I wouldn't want to have chickens too close to that farm. Or maybe I would. I'd probably catch more mink than I ever thought possible.

Any trappers out that way looking into hitting hard? I know I would. I could see Cathyrn's other half Jerry securing permission and going right at it!

Years ago that happened in my area. They were everywhere bumming food and hit on the road. Not a favor to the mink!

Over the years I've caught 15 ranch mink on my trap lines. So some of them can make a living In the wild.

Is it true ranch mink have no white patch on throat area ?

England and Ireland are crawling with them. Every last one of them M. vison. Nothing to do with the indigenous species of mainland Europe.

Now, taking a wild stab, right off the top of my head? I'd guestimate that mink farming probably started, proper, in the UK around ... I dunno. 1930's / 40's? Could even have been as late as the fifties that it would have become worthy of the title an 'Industry'.

Again, just tugging my beard and gazing at the wall. But, I knew what was probably one of the Last of the British Mink Farmers. And He was getting out and retiring. That would have been, what? Early eighties?

I believe it's all been banned completely, maybe as far back as twenty years ago. Something like that.

Still absolutely no shortage of them, on either island.

No idea what I'm trying to say by all that. Been a hectic week and I'm just relaxing, at last. Delighted to find a thread I can actually add something to ~ no matter how tenuous!

Being a suspicious mind, I wonder if any of these things are ever inside jobs/insurance fraud? I'm certainly not accusing anyone, just wondering if a mink ranch was losing money say due to a terrible fur market and rising costs associated with production, if this would be one of those desperate measures to get out from under it, and certainly plenty of scapegoats out there to blame....

... I got to quit watching so many crime dramas.

Someone explain to me, why are mink let loose like this at times ?

Around here it was typically anti's letting them "free"

Yes, with no thought to there well being in the wild and the damages all around. Plus Jayme could be right to, who knows as of now. I don't know why k snow but when I your "free" comment it reminded me of the great WKRP turkey drop. That made me giggle!

Idiots with a cause they know nothing about.

Thanks, I was wondering.

I would hope, if it was ranch financial troubles, that they would sell off their inventory , and get the most they could before they went out of business.

With numbers like that maybe even I could manage to catch one.

Meh... Probably not.

Mike

Alf was spray painted on the wall.
Called in a snowplow to clear roadkill.
Hunting them like rabbits.
About an hour away from me.
They had fish nets trying to catch them.

Do y'all have them up in the northeast part of the state?

Jeepers! Wonder what alf stands for?

Pretty sizable group probably needed to open up fences and then usher those released animals toward the opened areas leta alone open the cages for that many mink. With roughly a max of two per cage that is 10-20K of hatches that need to be opened and all in a short period of time and to be unoticed. Typically when excited the mink can get really noisy themselves.

Bryce

vast majority will be dead by Saturday road kill/starvation/dehydration...I don't believe a mink farmer would set his own mink free......they just "pelt out" also ranch mink fur in the wild goes bad really fast

Alien loves felines...Sorry wrong show

Animal Liberation Front. One of the more violent animal rights groups

ALF= Animal Liberation Front

1 more thing...most of the mink ranchers I know have good security, and good dogs

Yeah, I thought about that. You'd think they'd have good security.

40,000 counts of abandoning a domestic animal into the wild.

Last update was there's 10k mink unaccounted for. Sounds like most didnt make it out of the enclosure

Just in time for trapping season-good timing.

If you guys get into some, you'll need a fisher board

Who would buy them? They would just be into more money prepping them for sale.

Ok, I see that, just wondering what they should have done, if it wasn't some anti group that let them loose.

I suppose the question is, what SHOULD a company do in that situation ?

Pelt them out and go bankrupt, I guess.

Or sell them to another farm if they want em.. i think there's another mink farm in Ohio

Catch em,,,tan em,,and make your wifes mink coats out of em.

Guys having fun.

Ack please explain what has happened.......jk

That's what I heard as well. I live about a hour away from there.

They cut a 3x5 foot hole in the wall. A lot of the white mink were painted red. This morning they said about 10000 were unaccounted for. I talked with the county sheriff and the neighboring sheriff today. They even had some law enforcement skinning.

Good grief. I sure hope they catch those knotheads!

I just saw a post on Facebook that the guy got 70 mink with a 9 iron.

Lol, wonder if he hollered four each time. You'd think they would know who did it already if that ranch had decent security.

Why are they skinning them?

do you trap?

Ha^

Yes, supposedly. I think that it's not that we don't have any... There just aren't any in the areas I have access to. Friend of mine said years ago his brother was trapping a spot about 20 miles south of me... He was targeting raccoons and wound up catching more mink than he did coons. But ownership of that property has changed hands 1000x and it isn't available to trap anymore.

There's another place between Wyandotte and the Elk River that used to be a resort on Sycamore Creek. It just looked "minky" like something out of Hawbaker's Mink Trapping Methods book. The resort closed several years back. I guess I could do the legwork and see if I could get in there to trap it... But it's the complete opposite direction from the way I work and with my schedule it would be... An ordeal... To put it mildly.

It's been a while since I went and actively searched for any sign, but otter seem to be gaining in numbers around here...



Mike

Im sitting this year out....

It wasn't too many years ago when an animal rights group broke into the Michigan State College mink pens and released a multiple of mink.

The local trappers trapped quite a few but still a number of them starved.

All along the Cedar river in East Lansing which makes good hunting for most mink.