Communique: Animal Liberation Front burns down Oregon fur farm
Read the original ALF communique from the 1991 arson at the Malecky Mink Ranch in Oregon.
Part eight in a thirty-article series this month on the ALF’s fur farm campaign.
While most Animal Liberation Front communiques written in the 2000s are preserved somewhere on the internet, the vast majority that pre-date the internet age are difficult to track down in their entirety. I am posting one communique that has been (mostly) lost to history.
This communique was from one of the ALF actions that was part of Operation Bite Back, a campaign in the early 1990s intended to cripple the US fur industry through the destruction of key research and infrastructure sites. Rod Coronado served 4 years in prison for his role in the campaign. According to the book Operation Bite Back by Dean Kuipers, Rod Coronado participated in this action.
After the ALF burned down the processing building, this fur farm shut down.
The communique reads, in full:
“December 21 1991 – Western Wildlife Cell members of the Animal Liberation Front (A.L.F.) raided Malecky Mink Ranch in Yamhill, Oregon, and set an incendiary device that destroyed the processing plant of this farm near Salem.
Intelligence sources revealed that the fur farm was to be sold, with intentions to continue exploitation of fur animals. Malecky Mink Ranch was a recipient of information form Oregon State University’s Experimental Fur Farm and had developed innovative methods of commercial exploitation of mink for the fur trade.
No mink or humans were injured in the A.L.F.’s fourth action against the United States Fur Farm industry. Flehsing machines, drying drums, skinning racks, feed mixers, freezers, and a workshop were all effectively destroyed in this economic attack against the tools of death and destruction.
This action was taken to avenge the lives of mink murdered on the ranch in the past and to prevent the further imprisonment of native wildlife in the future. 750,000 mink are slaughtered every winter in the Northwest for trade and four million nationwide on over (illegible –ed.) fur farms.
The Animal Liberation Front also announces a new campaign against the fur trade, one that directly targets the insensitive humans who wear fur garments. We will fight the fur-wearers in the streets. No longer shall the ecological arrogance of the public supporters of the fur trade go unchallenged. A.L.F. members shall arm themselves with battery acid and dye, and will inflict damage on the furs worn by humans. Fur is for four-leggeds, not two. The lives of fur animals will be avenged.
The fur industry is responsible for the demise of not only native north american wildlife, but the destruction of Native peoples’ cultures as well. Over the last four hundred years this barbaric industry has waged a genocidal war against animals and humans. Through the introduction of social and physical disease, the fur trade has forced native people to participate in their bloody practice, or perish like so many animals in traps and cages.
It is time to eliminate this anthropocentric profit-centered beast before the last howl is heard. A.L.F. calls on all peoples to join in the battle against this ecologically destructive regime, and to defend the defenseless from the oppression of our own species. We must destroy that which destroys the animals, earth, and ourselves.
On behalf of the mink, fox, bobcat, lynx, and coyote nations. A.L.F. shall wage non-violent war against the fur trade. Until the last fur farm is burned to the ground.
Animal Liberation Front, Western Wildlife Cell”
This is the eighth of 30 articles I will be posting in December on the ALF’s fur farm campaign. Sign up for the email list to get every update sent to your inbox, or check back daily.
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