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As I am an occasional carnivore I have no problem with domesticating and raising animals for their usefulness. I believe as much of the animal as possible should be used. I wear beef leather shoes and jackets and others as leather gloves. I would wear a bison coat if I could afford it and lived in a cold enough place.
Mink are raised for their wrappers but I wonder what is done with the rest of the animal. Probably dog and cat food. Our carnivore pets cannot live on grains like we can. Something has to die to feed them.
This piece of vandalism gives Vandals bad name. At least the Vandals used whatever they stole. These idiots simply did not use their brains but relied on their emotions.
"Mink have a thick coat of fur and a thick layer of subcutaneous fat, disguising the fact that they are really quite skinny – not much more substantial than rats! As the price of biodiesel equipment falls, and petrochemical fuel prices remain high, more farmers are investing in equipment to convert fat to energy for on-farm use. However, currently, the best value for mink fat is realized by refining it to cosmetic grade oil for use in hypo-allergenic facial oils and cosmetics.
The oil is also used to condition and preserve leather. Mink oil can be purchased at some pharmacies, on the Internet. Mink carcasses are rarely eaten by humans as the scent gland gives the meat a distinctive flavor which most people don’t enjoy. However, they are not wasted. Some farmers trade them for fish offal with fishermen who use them as crab bait. Crabs love mink meat, but seals hate it!
Other farmers give the carcasses to people who raise birds of prey or run wildlife preserves, zoos or aquariums. Yet others use them to make organic compost. Or they may be bought and rendered down to provide raw materials for a wide range of products, from tires and paint to makeup and organic fertilizers."
The people who did this profess to be "animal lovers " but in reality their motive is anti-business, and anti-profit.
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Originally Posted by NLVgal
No. I doubt their motives are such. They are just misguided zealots.
Well, as I mentioned, I recently watched the Animal Liberation Front agitprop movie "Okja" (available on Netflix), where the head ALF guy proclaimed, “We inflict economic damage on those who harm animals. We never harm animals or non-animals, that is our credo.” (He seems to have no real problem with violence, however.)
I think they (and I know there are more animal activists than just ALF) justify their anti-business, anti-profit activities as inflicting economic damage against those who harm animals on behalf of animals.
Oh, RedZin, please don't encourage their tiresome tendencies to turn anything and everything into yet another left vs right battle in the Neverending American Cold Civil War. PLEASE!
Agreed. This isn't about where anyone may lie on the political spectrum. The Sandwash Sandanistas that dry gulch our cattle and sabotage ranching operations around here we don't view from a point of party or spectrum associations. They are just criminals and terrorists. Idiocy is a non partisan affliction. Stunts like this are just so totally boneheaded I can't bring myself to even remotely validate them with politics .
About maybe four years back a friend of mine who runs cattle on open range went to gather a few head at a line station he had built on BLM graze and when he and the ha ds got there they found the cabin and round up torched, on with the equipment stored in a conex and some 35 head shot dead. Literally riddled with bullets. 7.62x39 cases over the place. The FBI came in as did the BLM investigators. They caught up with the perps too. A fringe enviro wacko group out of the Bay Area. They used SKS rifles to shoot the cattle. All in the name of environmental activism. Cate destroy the environment ya know.
The stunt at issue here is no less idiotic, and neither were motivated by partisan politics. More like plain insanity a d idiocy in a perfectly balanced mixture. Yep. I figure enough of the critters will survive to create a new feral animal problem. So trappers will be called in to thin them out. They won't eradicate them though. Mink have a reproduction rate up there with rabbits. It's a historic scientific fact that anytime a new non native species is introduced by man for whatever reason it backfires and blows up. Every time. Rabbits, cane toads, pythons, coyotes, Dingos, Asian carp and Snakeheads, on and on the list goes.
You would think that people in animal activism would have some knowledge of basic animal biology and would know just what damage invasive species have caused. If they had pulled a stunt like this in Hawaii the locals would lynch them. They take invasive species seriously. As should we all.
As long as animals are not mistreated, and don't suffer, I have no problem using them for food, or clothing. I have a leather jacket, and eat meat regularly. I don't see a problem with either of those.
Of course not these ones....Where do you think 40,000 mink could be released and still find enough prey to keep them alive?
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