November 18, 2011
Animal Liberationists Make Claim for Oregon Mink Release of September 24

Astoria, Oregon: In a communique received recently by the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, activists have taken credit for the mink farm break-in, mink release and destruction of breeding records at an Oregon fur farm in late September. Only two months before they were slated to be killed by fur farmers, 300 mink were liberated September 24 from the fur farm located on Savola Road near Astoria.

While overall mink farm liberations have declined since the late-1990s, they have surged in Oregon. This was the fourth mink liberation in the Astoria area alone in the past three years. In July 2010, the Animal Liberation Front took credit for setting fire to to several vehicles and a barn at the Ylipelto Fur Farm, also in Astoria. October 4, 2009 saw another 300 mink released from the same location, which was also the site of the release of 1,500 mink in 2008.

The current communique reads, in full:

On the evening of September 24, we visited the mink farm on Savola Road in the outskirts of Astoria, Oregon, cutting holes in their fences before making our way through their sheds and opening cages.

Capitalism is cancerous and deadly to every life it comes into contact with. We're not interested in reforms and stall tactics, nor in the continuance of a culture that views lives as an economic resource.

On these cooling autumn nights we warm our fingers on the breeding records we took from your sheds and throw into our fire, and take comfort in seeing that some of us still have it in them to run into the wilderness beyond the fences.

For those whose sympathies lie with laws and commerce over lives, look around: retailers and restaurants are catching fire, windows are broken, tires slashed, and security costs are rising. Now might be a good time to consider another line of work.

This action was dedicated to the radical teachers, gardeners and foragers, to those embezzling from corporations, sharing indigenous skills, setting fires, molotoving cops, and all those working to challenge capitalism's deathgrip in their own communities. Your work inspires us.
Fewer calls to action, more action.

The Gordon Shumway Brigade

The Gordon Shumway Brigade apparently refers to the main character in a 1980's television show, ALF, which stood for 'alien life form'. ALF is also an abbreviation for the Animal Liberation Front, a clandestine group of animal liberationists who liberate animals from conditions of abuse and inflict economic sabotage on those who profit from animal abuse.