From Animal Liberation Frontline

Animal Liberation Front frees birds from farm outside Portland.

In a communique posted by Bite Back, the Animal Liberation Front took credit for releasing "dozens" of pheasants from Primrose Pheasant Farm in Canby, Oregon. The communique alluded to the purpose of the farm: breeding birds for both their flesh, and canned hunts.

In March, the ALF freed 100 pheasants from another farm in Oregon. The raids mark a small  but emerging trend in ALF actions: targeting facilities that breed wildlife. Whereas in the past the ALF's wildlife-related actions were dedicated to fur farms, over the past several years numerous other wildlife facilities have been raided - including farms breeding pheasants, elk, and deer.

Locating and targeting wildlife operations is a logical progression in ALF tactics. Focusing on animals that survive in the wild relieves activists of a  major burden present in actions such as laboratory liberations: having to find homes for animals. Removing this step means anyone with a car and a pair of wire cutters can free hundreds of thousands of animals from farms that breed anything from woodchucks to quail.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife does not appear to publish a list of licensed game farms like the one raided this week, however a company called "Game Birds R Us" in Scio, OR; holds a "Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO)"  permit.

The full communique reads:

"On the night of September 21, 2012, saboteurs tore open a lone flight pen located at the newly incorporated Primrose Pheasant Farm (27368 S. Primrose Path Canby, Oregon), releasing dozens of slaughter-bound ring-necked pheasants into the countryside.

Naturalized populations of ring-necked pheasants have resided in the Willamette Valley for hundreds of years and the surrounding farm land serves as ideal habitat that these captive bred non-domesticated birds can undoubtedly survive in. Destined otherwise to be killed by butchers and sport hunters, these sentient beings will now get the chance to live out the rest of their natural lives in the wild.

For the silent ones..

A.L.F."