ST. MARYS, Ont. -- Animal rights activists are being blamed for the deaths of more than 100 mink at a local farm.

Jeff Richardson was still catching a few loose mink at Glenwood Fur Farm on Monday morning after about 1,500 nursing females were released from their pens and turned out into the rain and cold overnight Saturday.

Many mink died in the near-freezing temperature, in fights with one another, or from being hit by cars. Some that were caught and returned to their pens Sunday succumbed to sickness or infection overnight.

"You always know that there's a really, really small segment of extremists who get enjoyment out of doing this," Richardson said. "But at this time of year I don't think there's a mink rancher that would think that anybody would release a mother from nursing young. They obviously did this to try to kill 5,000 30-day-old mink.

"Everything that they've done are all tell-tale signs of what has occurred (elsewhere) in the past. It clearly isn't an act of random vandalism or else they wouldn't have put the effort or risk into doing it. It was clearly calculated . . . to close the farm."

Jeff's brother, Scott, saw a mink on the porch of his house at the west side of the farm around 6:30 a.m. Sunday, then went to the farm to discover hundreds of mink running loose inside the fenced property.

Two lengths of fence had been cut at the north side and a gate at the front opened. All the cage doors inside the two large barns holding the females and their kits were open and information cards about each mink tossed onto the floor.

Employees, family and other ranchers from the area rounded up about 95% of the 1,500 loose mink over the next several hours and got them back into cages. But it's impossible to match the females to the litters, increasing the chance that more kits will die if they are rejected by the mothers.

"We're going to lose more mink over the next three days. The losses as a percentage are small, but any loss is sickening," said Richardson, who had Sebringville OPP on the property investigating on Sunday but wasn't holding out hope that the culprits would be caught.

"Historically it's been difficult to catch them because they're a real underground part of society," he said. "But definitely people know things and I hope that they're sickened by what happened."