An open letter to our neighbors from Pipkorn Mink Ranch

By Tom and Carol Pipkorn; Powers, Michigan

As we all know, after the $12 million arson fire at Vail Resorts in Colorado, Earth Liberation Front (ELF) turned its attention to the Pipkorn Mink Ranch in Michigan. The following letter ran in three local papers. Teresa Platt, Fur Commission USA and NAIA's Board of Directors

In the early hours of October 26, our family became victims of the most cowardly sort of violence. As we slept in our safe beds, animal rights extremists "bravely," like modern day disgruntled "Rambos," released five thousand of our mink. This act was not done in front of us, in daylight hours, but rather during one of the darkest, foggiest nights of the year. These criminals had stealthily "cased" our property using airplanes and scouting techniques, probably provided for by the more affluent radicals in our society.

Not once, in all the 60 years the Pipkorns have been in the farming business, has this kind of assault been experienced. People in the community have freely come and gone from our premises without suspicion throughout those years. Some would call us naïve for being so trusting, but my husband and I prefer, instead, to consider ourselves simply good neighbors among many other good neighbors. After an attack such as this, it would be very easy to surrender to our first feelings of anger and indignation. It would be natural to become distrustful and even vengeful. However, seeing the close to 100 friends, family and citizens of Powers, Hermansville, Bark River, Wilson, from Channing and Gladstone, all working so hard to save our livelihood, gives us hope and enthusiasm to go on.

A few people committing a crime under the guise of heroism managed to make heroes out of all who came to assist us. Law-breaking individuals only elevated the integrity and compassion of all those law-abiding friends and neighbors who worked for hours on end catching defenseless mink that are unused to surviving in the wild. We'll always be indebted to the people who helped us in so many ways on that day. Those who come to this area to destroy the camaraderie we share should be aware that they are crossing into a new territory, a place where people do not submit to threat or violence because of our commitment to one another.