Eco-vandals free mink from Spain farms
"MADRID, Spain - Vandals broke into three mink farms in northern Spain and freed thousands of the prized, furry creatures in carefully planned raids, police said Sunday.
The raiders — believed to be environmental activists — acted under cover of darkness late Saturday in three towns in Galicia, northwest Spain. It has about 80 mink farms.
At one of the farms, in the town of Muros, an estimated 5,000 mink were released from their cages and about 2,000 of them made it outside the walled farm compound, said local police official Maria Dolores Sendon.
The operation was so well organized that the vandals propped boards on the walls to help animals scale them and placed fish outside the walls as bait for them to keep going, Sendon said.
"This was not a prank," she said in a telephone interview. "It was very well planned."
The biggest breakout was at a farm in the town of Oza dos Rios, where some 11,000 of the animals were allowed to scurry out of their cages, and about half made it outside the walls, according to the farm's owner, Charo Carrillo.
The vandals tried to tear down the wall to facilitate the escape and when this failed they ripped off doors and set them up as ramps for the animals to climb, she told the national news agency Efe.
Carrillo said that most of those that got away will probably starve to death in a matter of days because they were raised in captivity and do not know how to hunt or fish.
She gave no figure for financial losses but said the raid meant "20 years of work to create a high-quality product have been ruined."
Carrillo said she plans to call an urgent meeting of the Galician Association of Fur Producers to demand that authorities take measures to protect mink farms."
The raiders — believed to be environmental activists — acted under cover of darkness late Saturday in three towns in Galicia, northwest Spain. It has about 80 mink farms.
At one of the farms, in the town of Muros, an estimated 5,000 mink were released from their cages and about 2,000 of them made it outside the walled farm compound, said local police official Maria Dolores Sendon.
The operation was so well organized that the vandals propped boards on the walls to help animals scale them and placed fish outside the walls as bait for them to keep going, Sendon said.
"This was not a prank," she said in a telephone interview. "It was very well planned."
The biggest breakout was at a farm in the town of Oza dos Rios, where some 11,000 of the animals were allowed to scurry out of their cages, and about half made it outside the walls, according to the farm's owner, Charo Carrillo.
The vandals tried to tear down the wall to facilitate the escape and when this failed they ripped off doors and set them up as ramps for the animals to climb, she told the national news agency Efe.
Carrillo said that most of those that got away will probably starve to death in a matter of days because they were raised in captivity and do not know how to hunt or fish.
She gave no figure for financial losses but said the raid meant "20 years of work to create a high-quality product have been ruined."
Carrillo said she plans to call an urgent meeting of the Galician Association of Fur Producers to demand that authorities take measures to protect mink farms."
in Yahoo News
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