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Wisconsin State Journal An animal-rights activist who faces federal prison for freeing thousands of mink from Midwestern fur farms says he'd do it again, and doing time will be nothing compared to what caged animals suffer. Peter Daniel Young, an idol to animal-rights activists after he eluded federal authorities for seven years, told The Associated Press in an interview from jail he believes he saved the minks from slavery. "I would do it all over again," he said. "As bad as it could get (in prison), it will never be as bad as it was for those mink." Federal prosecutors believe Young and an accomplice were acting on behalf of the Animal Liberation Front when they broke onto mink farms in Iowa, South Dakota and Wisconsin in 1997 and freed about 7,000 mink. The FBI considers groups like ALF the nation's top domestic terrorist threat. Young, 28, scoffed at that. "If saving thousands of lives makes a terrorist, then I certainly embrace the label," Young said. "I would have been just as fast to act if those cages had been filled with human beings." Teresa Platt, executive director of Fur Commission USA, a national association of fur farmers, called Young's philosophy nonsense. "He's ... been fed a steady string of propaganda for 10 years," she said. She has said cage-raised mink can't survive in the wild. They don't know how to hunt or drink on their own, and many tend to head to freeways and get run over, she said. Alex Ott, owner of a fur farm Young raided in Tomahawk, said he treats his mink well and has every right to make a living. "These people ... skulk around. They attack and they terrorize," Ott said. A grand jury in Madison indicted Young and Justin Samuel in 1998 on four counts of extortion and two counts of animal enterprise terrorism, which together carried a maximum sentence of 82 years in prison. Then the pair disappeared. Samuel was captured in Belgium in 1999, while Young dodged authorities until his arrest in March for shoplifting CDs from a Starbucks in San Jose, Calif. Federal prosecutors dropped the extortion charges this summer after. Young pleaded guilty to the animal enterprise counts in a deal with prosecutors. He faces up to two years in prison when he is sentenced Nov. 8. Young, of Mercer Island, Wash., said he never fit into mainstream society, and the animal rights movement gave him a sense of belonging to something bigger. Inspired by the band Earth Crisis, which advocates freeing animals, he joined a student animal-rights group at the University of Washington. He got arrested at protests in Portland, Ore., and the University of California, Davis, he said. He and Samuel targeted Midwest fur farms because authorities in the Northwest were putting too much heat on them. Wisconsin had the largest concentration of mink farms in the nation, he added. But they hit too many farms, exposing themselves too much, Young said. Young said his arrest has galvanized animal-rights activists. He gets 10 letters a day, he said, and activists from around the country show up for his court appearances. T-shirts emblazoned with Young's face are being sold online. Platt said Young represents a disconnect between urban and rural America. "One hundred years ago when we all lived on the farm, we would have laughed Peter Young out of the room," she said. The case at a glance Who: Peter Daniel Young, 28, of Mercer Island, Wash., is an animal-rights activist accused of freeing 7,000 mink from Midwestern fur farms, including three in Wisconsin, in 1997. He faces two years in federal prison. No fear: Young says however bad prison is, it won't compare to the suffering of caged animals. Spin machine?: Young is lost in his movement's propaganda, says Teresa Platt, executive director of Fur Commission USA.
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