Oregon Begins Counting to 1,500 in Extremely Fast Mink

By Thursday morning, crews at an Oregon farm had completed the unusual task of counting approximately 1,200 extremely fast mink, leaving hundreds more somewhere beyond the fence and presumably not queuing politely to return.

About 1,500 animals were released from Cascade Farms in Turner after suspected intruders cut through the farm’s fencing sometime on Wednesday night or early Thursday. The breach prompted a frantic search as farm workers and responders tried to retrieve the animals before they succumbed to thirst, starvation or predators.

Fur Commission USA said roughly 80% of the mink had been recovered by Thursday morning. That was swift work, although 20% of 1,500 is still about 300 mink: less a loose end than a substantial quantity of mobile fur requiring individual persuasion.

Police were notified, and the search remained under way during the crucial first day after the escape. According to the commission, mink still missing face a high risk of dying from thirst, starvation or predation within 24 to 48 hours. What looks at first glance like a mass bid for freedom is therefore an urgent animal-welfare emergency, as well as a farm-security matter.

Escaped mink need to be tracked and recovered immediately. The response can require local authorities to coordinate with farm staff and industry representatives, producing the sort of operation in which everyone knows the total number sought but none of the participants is especially inclined to stand still for counting.

Cascade Farms raises mink for their pelts. Commission officials said the farm has Humane Care Certified status, which they described as reflecting rigorous animal-welfare standards. Attempts to obtain comment from Cascade Farms on Thursday afternoon were unsuccessful.

The incident occurred in Marion County, where many of Oregon’s remaining mink farms are concentrated. Oregon continues to be one of the leading mink-producing states, despite the decline of the US mink industry over the past several decades.

For nearby communities, the immediate concern was not that Turner had suddenly acquired hundreds of tiny new residents, but that the animals were poorly equipped to survive away from the farm. Even after the rapid recovery of four-fifths of them, responders still had a narrow window in which to locate the remainder.

The fence cutting is being treated as the work of suspected intruders, while the notified police and those involved in the recovery continue dealing with its consequences. For now, the next step is straightforward in description and rather more difficult in practice: find the remaining mink, retrieve them safely and work out who turned an Oregon farm into the fluffiest logistical emergency in the county.