The Commonwealth Beat with Laura LeBeau - Episode 60 - 11/24/2024

The Commonwealth Beat with Laura LeBeau is a statewide Public Affairs program airing on all of the Seven Mountains Media Pennsylvania radio stations. The illegal entry of two animal rights activists onto a Northumberland County mink farm October 19th has once again put the fur industry in the spotlight.  Is it ethical?  Is it profitable?  Is there even a demand for natural mink fur nowadays?  Since the 1950's, the Richard H. Stahl Sons Farm in Sunbury has been raising and harvesting mink.  But the farm has been under constant attack by animal rights activists who've cut through the fencing and released thousands of minks into the wild on several occasions; the most recent attack coming October 19, 2024.  Challis Hobbs is the Executive Director of the Fur Commission USA, a mink industry non-profit group.  He discusses the threat by these eco-terrorists on mink farmers in general, and how this particular Pennsylvania mink farm is fighting back.  In the Pa-mazing segment, a discussion about the town of Wellsboro, in Tioga County.  In the early 1900's, the small town made a name for itself by innovating the process of mass producing light bulbs for Thomas Alva Edison.  Then in the 1940's during World War II, the town was called upon to "save Christmas."  Hear the remarkable story of how they did just exactly that!