Utah members of the Animal Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the Sept. 21 raid and another on Aug. 19 in South Jordan in which breeding records were destroyed and 800 pens opened.
The attacks are a blow to a big industry in Utah. The state ranks second only to Wisconsin in mink production, producing 1.5 million pelts annually. Sixty-six farms in Utah raise more than 620,000 minks annually and the pelts are valued at almost $41 million, according to Fur Commission USA.
"Nobody is putting anyone out of the mink business," said Ryan Holt, who spent last Sunday helping to round up minks freed from the Kaysville farm. "If anything, it's turning people against the animal rights movement."
Holt's own Salt Lake County mink farm was targeted in 1996 when vandals jumped a fence, spray painted "blood money" on buildings and broke into cages, freeing 3,000 minks.
Federal agents say the Animal Liberation Front is organized around small, separate cells akin to organizations such as the Irish Republican Army, making investigation difficult. The group believes that "non-human animals deserve to live according to their own natures, free form harm, abuse and exploitation," according to the group's Web site.
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