Up to 40,000 minks that escaped Ohio farm are being hunted and killed by locals with police using snow plow to clear carcasses

Thousands of minks who were released from a northwest Ohio farm are being hunted by armed locals and killed on local roads, authorities say.

Van Wert County Sheriff Thomas Riggenbach said an estimated 10,000 minks were let loose from Lion Farms USA Mink Farm in Hoaglin Township overnight on Tuesday, in a statement posted to social media.

With hundreds of minks being killed while trying to cross US Route 127 near the farm, authorities brought in snow plows to clear the carcasses, Mr Riggenbach said.

WTOL11 reported that locals with firearms headed to the area to cull the carnivorous predators who survive off “fresh kills” and are said to be targeting nearby chicken farms.

Experts told WTOL11 the surviving minks are likely to starve to death over the winter.

Vandals left the “ALF” insignia of the Animal Liberation Front daubed on a building at the farm along with the word “we’ll be back”.

The mink farm owners initially estimated between 25,000 and 40,000 minks had been released from the farm.

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Mr Riggenbach said in a statement that many minks remained on the property and were corralled back into cages by farm employees.

Mink hunting is illegal in Ohio, but authorities weren’t discouraging local hunters from shooting the “bothersome pests”.

The sheriff said property owners were within their rights to protect their property, pets and livestock.

Minks only grow up to 18 inches (45cms) in length but can prey on much bigger animals and “stick to a diet of fresh kills”, the sheriff’s office said.

One local resident, Steve Replogle, told WTOL11 he had gone to the area to cull the minks as a “public service” and hoped to receive $40 for each pelt.

Ohio State University natural resource director Curtis Young told the news site that many minks would be unable to survive due to a lack of available food.

“Because of the time of the year, the availability of prey is maybe somewhat limited for them, so unfortunately a lot of them are going to starve to death,” he told WTOL11.

The Van Wert’s Sheriff’s Office said in a statement its investigation into the mink release was continuing, with assistance from other agencies.

The Animal Liberation Front stopped short of claiming responsibility for the break-in in a statement to The Independent, saying it had not yet received a “communique” from activists.

The group, which describes itself as a “leaderless, decentralised political and social resistance movement”,  released 1,000 minks from another Ohio farm last week and also visited another state mink farm but found “no survivors”.

Millions of minks are farmed and culled every year in the United States to make sought-after white fur coats. According to Fur Commission USA, there are 275 mink farms in 23 states that generate three million pelts annually.

Animal activists describe mink farming as cruel and lobby governments to ban the practice.