Mink farm owner promises to help catch chicken-eating animals

The owner of a Cavendish mink farm says he does everything he can to contain his mink, and is promisingto help those who have had trouble with escaped animals.

Viking Fur has been subject to recent criticism, with farmers complaining that mink were getting loose and killing chickens in nearby Cavendish.

Thomas Dobbie has 17 chickens. He said in the past few weeks, four have been killed by mink.

"If a mink wants to get in, a mink will get in," he said.

Dobbie said that he can recognize which mink have escaped from the farm and which are wild.

He said that while he doesn't think the escaped mink are the ones killing the chickens, they will be soon.

"I don't believe they're a danger yet. But I believe the wild ones are from the farm, but they've been out in the wild," he said.

"These will be free range chickens. I'm not going to lock those chickens up. And if in a couple of months we have no chickens, then that's it. We'll pack it up."

Mink farm trying hard to contain animals

The owner of Viking Fur, Peter Noer, said that he take every precaution to contain his minks.

However, with more than 80,000 mink on his farm, he said he'd be lying if he claimed none of them ever escaped.

"It happens now and then, and we try and provide traps if we can. But we're very cautious, because if a mink can escape out of your farm than a mink could escape into your farm, and that could be very devastating," Noer said.

"We are of course very sad that any mink is coming and killing the chicken farmers' chicken and I'll definitely try to help him to catch that mink, whether it is domestic or wild."

Noer said that mink farming has been the subject of a lot of criticism, but that it adds great value to the community.

He said that Viking Furs has created more than 100 jobs in the Trinity Bay area.

"A lot of people have benefited our farm. We buy all our gas local, we buy all our lumber local," he said.

"It's a good help to the local economy."