Hundreds of farmed mink are wandering through central Pennsylvania after escaping from a nearby fur farm, according to Pennsylvania State Police. Ever since, the escaped mink have been spotted everywhere in the region of Rockefeller Township: In the woods, on the road and under buildings. Local authorities originally claimed that between 6,000 and 8,000 mink escaped, but later revised their estimate. Although there are thousands of mink at the Richard H. Stahl Sons mink farm, less than 1,000 fled after holes were cut in the fences.
"What we are trying to tell the public is if you see a mink to give it space, do not approach or try to pick it up because of the potential of a bite or scratch or exchange of saliva," said Pennsylvania Game Commission Lt. Aaron Morrow in a statement.
Mink are potentially dangerous because they are prone to carrying dangerous diseases, from COVID-19 to the H5N1 influenza strain. Farmed mink also have weakened immune systems because of the stress involved in living on fur farms. While fur farms are widely regarded as cruel, liberating the mink into the wild causes many other problems, as mink expert Joseph Carter told Salon after a similar incident in Ohio in December.
"When nature is totally turned on its head by thousands of mink suddenly flooding an area, then it causes all kinds of chaos," Carter explained. "The mink end up killing and eating each other, in addition to every unfortunate animal they can catch for miles around."
