Itâs that time of year again folks. The mink ranches are getting ready for the pelting season, as well as sorting out their pelters and breeders for next year. The mink are getting extra food, more straw, larger bedding boxes and even more cleaning. Things seem to be going great, but a danger lurks from the other side of the fence.
So far as I know, there have been 6 attacks on mink ranches just in the past few weeks. Hundreds released and doomedâŠ
Itâs okay to wish mink werenât farmed. Itâs okay to be against fur. But itâs not okay to release ranch mink into the wild! I canât stress this enough! Youâre doing them a horrible, cruel act!
Look at pictures 1 and 2. This is the true wild mink. Take a good look at his guard hairs. Notice that theyâre âspikeyâ and longer than the undercoat? Thatâs because this helps him stay warm in freezing  waters! His skull is long and narrow for slipping through rodent dens easily. His body is swift and lean for swimming and escaping predators.
Now look at pictures 3 and 4. This is the domestic ranch mink. Selectively bred for fur about over a hundred years now. Heâs removed from wild mink by hundreds of generations. Heâs not a wild animal. Look closely at his fur. Itâs sleek and very even, almost âteddy bearâ like. This is a coat not for the wild and definitely not for frigid waters. His skull is rounder and shorter. This could allow a rat to be closer to eyes when he bites, thus getting an injury. His body, especially his chest, is wider, with shorter limbs. His colours are usually lighter, or boldly marked. If he is not brown or black, where can he hide from hawks?
This is what Iâm getting at. Wild mink and ranch mink are both mink, but their genes are vastly different now. This can be horrible for the species as a whole! Let me explain further : If they cross breed, which they do, the guard hairs of the wild mink that protect them will be downgraded in future generations. This doesnât sound serious, but it is! Any change in a species that depends on itâs fur is serious! Not just the fur, but the colour! Mink are brown for a reason. A piebald mink generation will probably plummet the species as a whole over time. Ranch mink are blue, grey, spotted, white and striped. Thatâs no camouflage in a stream bank. Thatâs a beaming signal for âcome and kill meâ.
When mink are released from a ranch, by the hundreds or thousands, they have to face two things. Remember, you are throwing them to the lions so to speak. The mink can either learn everything to survive - which they never learned. Instinct is there, but instinct does better with experience. Or, as in the 5th image, they can die. They donât know what cars are, or what hawks are or dogs, or snakes or poisonous plants. They donât know these things. You wouldnât toss a little dog out to the woods and expect it to pack up with wolves would you (because we all know it would be torn to shreds within days)? Then why would you toss these mink out into the Hunger Games that is nature they know nothing about? You are dooming them. Theyâll die a horrible death sooner or later. A death in a fur farm, as I have seen first hand, is literally seconds with carbon monoxide! Compare that to being poisoned or speared by a hawkâs talons. Maybe if the mink is lucky, he will wander into a conibear trapâŠ
Aside from that, the survivors will pass on these domestic traits. Domestic animals have these traits because they no longer survive off themselves. They survive from mankind and thus erased the traits needed for survival in a wild setting a long time ago. Ranch mink also carry and spread Aleutian AD to all mustelids in an ecosystem! This is a devastating disease! They also hybridize!
And with all of this, we also have this little guy as the last picture. This is a European mink. Critically endangered because of animal rights activists⊠when you release ranch mink, you not only doom them but other animals! They now have to compete with a whole new species and theyâre losing their habitat to the american mink and also, the hybrids of minkXpolecat offspring that are a land and water predator - and with desperation to breed, this guy interbreeds with hybrids and spoils the thread his species is clinging too. This guy has nowhere to go. His food source is also effected. American mink are bigger and catch up all his food. Thanks to activists not caring for nature as a whole, this guy and waterfowl will soon be lost.
Donât blame mink ranchers for causing the status on these endangered animals. YOU released them.
Donât abandon these animals in the name of âliberationâ. This is not liberation. This is cruel and needless.
If you absolutely hate the fur industry, please find another way to combat it. This is doing absolutely nothing. Fur ranches just buy new stock anyways and continue on. Youâre not making a nice impact. You are however, messing with the natural order of the ecosystem and you are responsible for all those deaths and many more to come.
Those mink starving and getting ran over is your fault.
Itâs okay to hate what mink are used for, but is a carbon monoxide death worse than everything I listed above? These animals are bred and made to fit into this role. Not to be in the wild wrecking genetic and physical havoc.Â
I wanted to share this to educate people. If you were planning on invading a ranch and releasing mink to die, I hope this changes your mind. If not, well, you donât really care about nature. You just care about having a vendetta against something, care only for your politics and causing a stir.Â
1)Â http://www.flickr.com/photos/ozoni11/431780271/
2)Â http://rossettandgresfordflyfishing.co.uk/articles.html
3)Â http://www.jkcc.com/mink.html
4)Â http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-18774436-black-mink-on-white-background.php
5)Â http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/hbo/2010/aug/30/road-kill-mink-style/
6)Â http://www.animalinfo.org/species/carnivor/mustlutr.htm
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