Victims of Fashion: Factory Fur Farms

Compassion, in which all living things take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.
— Albert Schweitzer

Of the approximately 2-million animals officially reported killed each year by the Canadian fur industry, about half are raised on factory farms. Foxes and minks make up the vast majority, with other targeted species including chinchillas, nutrias, rabbits and raccoons.

Many Canadians are opposed to the wearing of fur for fashion. Some of them have seen the horrible images of animals confined in tiny, filthy cages on fur farms. Others know about the environmental destruction caused by these facilities.

So it is rather ironic that the fur industry uses these taxpayers' dollars to wage expensive public relations campaigns in a vain attempt to disguise the bloody origins of their product. Please take a few minutes to find out the true facts of "ranched" or factory farmed fur.

Fur industry myth: "Farmed furbearers are often called "the best cared-for domestic animals in the world." (Fur Institute of Canada).

Fact: The Fur Institute conveniently neglects to mention just who they think would make such a preposterous statement. The reality is that if a fur farmer did to a cat or dog what they routinely do to minks, foxes, and many other animals, they would be charged with extreme cruelty. Furbearing animals raised on factory farms are confined in tiny mesh cages stacked together in long sheds that provide little shelter from extreme temperatures. Animals imprisoned in fur factories suffer frostbite, lack of proper food and clean water, chronic disease, infections, social deprivation, and severe mental distress. Because of the stressful environment in which they are forced to live, factory farmed furbearers routinely exhibit neurotic behaviors such as pacing, weaving, self-mutilation and cannibalism. Moreover, the use of hormones and environmental manipulation is routine in these facilities in order to accelerate breeding and increase profit. The animals are inbred for specific colours, causing severe abnormalities such as deafness, crippling, deformed sex organs, screw necks, weakened immune systems, anaemia, sterility, and disturbances of the nervous system. Animals are usually killed between seven and ten months of age with inhumane methods such as anal electrocution, gassing, neck breaking and lethal injection.

Fur industry myth: "On North American fur farms, industry guidelines ensure high standards of housing, nutrition and animal care." (Fur Council of Canada)

Fact: There are no laws regulating the keeping, handling, or killing of cage-raised fur-bearing animals in Canada. The existing industry guidelines could not in any way be called "strict" and are entirely voluntary. There is no public inspection of fur farms, and therefore no way to determine if any of these voluntary guidelines are ever implemented. Furtherfore, attempts by the Canadian federal government to introduce stronger penalties for animal abuse have been vehemently opposed by the fur trade. So if the "industry guidelines" ensure such high standards for animal care, why is the fur industry so afraid of stronger anti-cruelty legislation? The answer is clear - because the fur industry knows as we do that their concern for animal welfare is about as genuine as the markets they claim are developing for fur.

Fur industry myth: "Fur farmers have cultivated strains of mink and fox that are genetically distinct from their wild cousins and which are accustomed to ranch conditions." (Fur Institute of Canada)

Fact: Factory farmed furbearing animals are selectively bred for the appearance of their fur, not for their ability to adapt to intensive confinement. Furthermore, wild furbearing animals are routinely introduced into captive populations, specifically to increase genetic diversity. Minks and foxes make up the vast majority of factory farmed furbearing animals in Canada, and many important aspects of both mink and fox behaviour are denied them in captivity.

Mink have been farmed for approximately 80 years. Researchers at the University of Cambridge suggest that it is unlikely that the species can have adapted to farming by humans in that length of time.1 In the wild they are solitary, tend to travel long distances and use several den sites, and swim and dive regularly. Farmed mink, on the other hand, are kept in small cages, with no access to water for swimming. Research by Oxford University zoologist Georgia Mason has proven that contrary to industry arguments that minks have adapted well to captivity, they still have not been domesticated. Despite 70 generations being bred in captivity, mink still yearn to do what comes naturally in the wild, and what stresses minks the most is repressing their innate desire to swim. (Reuters London 2/28/01)

Foxes - which were still being taken from the wild to stock farms as recently as 1991 (in Finland) - are equally likely to maintain their wild instincts. These include: using large patterned home ranges, travelling long distances, rearing their cubs for up to six months, and living within a complex social structure. Farmed foxes are kept in cages, singly or in pairs, and their young are removed at around eight weeks. Foxes have had little opportunity to become domesticated and on farms they display extreme fear of humans involving trembling, defecating, withdrawing to the back of the cage and attempting to bite handlers. Currently, breeding animals are caught or moved up to 20 times per year.
This intense fear is thought to be the cause of high rates of abnormal behaviours on fox farms, including the killing and injuring (tail removal, biting) of cubs by their mothers.

The reality is, captive furbearers remain every bit as wild as their free counterparts, possessing all of the same instincts, behaviours and needs. And if the most domestic of all animal species, the dog, is so clearly unsuited to the deplorable conditions of a puppy mill, logic dictates that wild furbearing animals must be just as unsuited to the comparable conditions of a factory fur farm. It is preposterous to say that any animal could ever become "accustomed" to intensive confinement, social deprivation, denial of proper food and water, constant exposure to extreme temperatures, chronic disease, anal electrocution, gassing, neck-breaking, and lethal injection.

Fur industry myth: "The best indication of (a furbearer's) overall health and well being is the condition of the coat or fur…so the welfare of the animal is of prime concern." (Fur Institute of Canada)

Fact: On a factory fur farm, thousands of animals are confined in very small spaces, making these institutions a prime place for development of disease. The diseases that commonly affect ranched minks and foxes, including Aleutian Disease (AD), Distempter, and Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy (TME), often show few outwardly discernable symptoms, and rarely affect the appearance of the animal's coat until they are near death. This is why entire mink and fox farms are often wiped out when one of their animals contracts a disease. By the time the farmer realizes that there is a disease present in the population, it has already spread to all the other animals. Furthermore, furbearers will produce thick and healthy coats when exposed to extreme cold, regardless of their health. Thus, factory farmers add to the deplorable conditions under which they confine furbearers by exposing them to extreme cold temperatures - specifically to force the miserable animals to produce thicker pelts. It is important to remember that animals on factory fur farms are slaughtered in the first year of their life. Their coats are in their prime, and the inhumane conditions under which they are kept does little to affect that.

Fur industry myth: "An animal needs good food, low stress and a clean environment in order to be healthy." (Fur Institute of Canada)

Fact: Certainly, good food, low stress and a clean environment are central to any animal's health and wellbeing. And it is precisely the absence of all three of these factors that makes fur farms so conducive to disease, mental distress, and high mortality rates. The Canadian Fur Institute says, "Mink, fox and chinchilla farmers feed their animals with eggs, meat and fish that have been judged unfit for human consumption." This "food" generally consists of slaughterhouse byproducts, which the fur farms obtain for free or for very little money. The use of this lowgrade food is one of the main causes of TME, a disease similar to mad cow disease. Furbearers that are confined on intensive farms exhibit neurotic behaviors, such as weaving, pacing, self-mutilation and cannibalism - all of which are signs of extreme mental distress. These abnormal behaviors are a direct result of the barren, filthy and miserable conditions under which these intelligent, sensitive animals are forced to exist.

Fur industry myth: "Humane euthanasia techniques practiced on fur farms are those recognized by the American Veterinary Medical Association in the United States and by the Guelph University Research Facility in Canada." (Fur Commission USA)

Fact: The following paragraphs are extracted from the WSPA report Fashion Victims:

"Most mink are killed by gassing, using either carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide.
Carbon dioxide can kill animals quickly when used at 100 per cent concentration, but it is known to cause extreme stinging and burning of the nose. Observations of mink killed by carbon dioxide have shown that they run around the gas chamber frantically and struggle to keep their heads above the level of the gas. A report on euthanasia produced for the European Commission's Environment Directorate concluded that carbon dioxide 'should not be used in diving animals such as mink because of their ability to hold their breath.'

"Carbon monoxide is usually supplied to gas chambers from the exhaust of a tractor
engine. This gas can cause animals to lose consciousness after about 40 seconds but
causes severe irritation unless it is carefully cooled and filtered. The European
Commission's Environment Directorate report condemned the use of exhaust gas as a
form of euthanasia.

"Foxes are most commonly killed by electrocution. This is done by inserting one
electrode into the animal's rectum and another into its mouth. While electrocution can cause death rapidly, the stress from the capture and restraining of foxes to perform this inevitably causes a great deal of suffering.

"Several types of lethal injections are used to destroy fur bearing animals. Some, such as sodium pentobarbitone, can kill animals humanely, but others such as chloral hydrate, methylated spirits, and nicotine-based poisons have been condemned by veterinarians. These substances may take many minutes to take effect, during which the animals can experience extreme pain. Undercover video evidence has even shown neck breaking as a method of killing on a US mink farm."

Fur industry FACT: "Animal rights campaigners have now turned their attention to fur farming on both sides of the Atlantic." (Fur Institute of Canada)

This time, they are correct! And the anti-fur movement is making progress. Fox farming is now banned in Holland with all remaining fox farms forced to close by 2004. In January, 2000, fox farming became illegal in Sweden. Austria does not have any fox farms as a result of animal friendly legislation, and the United Kingdom banned fur farming in December of 2000. In March of 2002, the Scottish Parliament voted 77 to 8, with 6 abstentions, to outlaw fur farming in that country. This clearly indicates that governments are beginning to share the public's grave concerns for the welfare of animals in intensive confinement. It is only a matter or time before Canada follows suit, and relegates factory fur farms to the history books.

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