Ignoring animals’ welfare and ensuring that they die under dreadful conditions: farming centres feature all possible ways for animals to suffer. Neither laws nor the more or less « humanised » systems set up enable the « cruelty free » production of fur. There is no « good » method for this.
Buying a coat maid from farmed animal fur may sooth the conscience of the person who buys it; nevertheless, they will be wearing traces of suffering and barbarism. First of all, because animals continue to be trapped in the wild to satisfy the needs of the fur industry. Then because while they are bred specially for their fur, this does not mean that minks, chinchillas, foxes, rabbits and other animals lose their real character. Locked up in wire cages on raised posts open to the wind, these animals which have vastly differing psychological needs and behaviours, are subject to every type of suffering imaginable during their short lives and during their death.
Biological needs ignored
• For example, racoons are solitary animals and need a great deal of space with a lot of water. Mustelids, which are a non-domesticated species, suffer considerably when touched by humans. It is particularly stressful for them when they are picked up with clips and gloves to avoid bites. Foxes are especially frightened by humans: their stress is permanent, even when they are not touched. And in cages there is nowhere for them to hide.
• The cages, whose dimensions are incompatible with the most basic respect for animals, are raised off the floor so that the animals cannot escape. Their feet rest on a very fine grille which injures their pads. Despite this, the animals turn round and round until they are driven mad. It is the only physical exercise they are allowed. According to a European Union study – the welfare of animals kept for fur production – carried out in 2001, the cages do not correspond to the animals’ needs.
• Exposed to the elements, the cages are often death chambers. In addition to the wind, cold and snow from which they suffer in the winter as they have no earth, foxes and racoons fear the heat from which there is no shelter. In summer, 10% of animals with fur die from heat in farms. Skunks and racoon dogs are also very highly sensitive to cold and racoon dogs’ feet can even freeze.
• The animals should be fed every day but there is not always time to monitor the condition of each one: in Scandinavia, farmers often do not even live beside their farms. What’s more, if we believe the farmers themselves, food represents half the cost price of a fur, so this is where savings are made with poor quality meat and fish sub-products used, if not the bodies of other animals produced for fur killed earlier.
Illness and injury untreated
• The animals catch many illnesses that are often contagious. These illnesses are not always treated to save money: the animal will only live for a short time and its fur is not damaged by eye or ear infections for example. Often an injured or ill animal is kept "hanging on" until its normal slaughter date if its fur is expensive.
• Captive animals also suffer from numerous parasites: fleas, live, various mites and flies attracted by the piles of excrement that build up under the cages.
• Artificial insemination is also often the source of uterus infections.
Terrible death conditions
Death is based on a single imperative: kill the animal at the lowest cost without damaging its skin. The methods used to kill the animals vary according to the countries: electrocution, poisoning, but also gassing with chemicals or breaking the neck (see box). These are cruel slaughter processes that do not avoid the animals suffering, although in its report on animal health the European Union’s Scientific Committee emphasises that “Euthanasia should only be carried out with humanly-acceptable methods”.
Farming and animal welfare are incompatible
In this same report which provided an inventory and listed a whole series of measures to take account of “animal welfare” in farms, the Scientific Committee emphasised that “cages should be entirely reviewed to provide the comfort that animals need”. The report also indicated that “Farmers should only be authorised to keep animals if they have a diploma that certifies their skills in terms of species management, welfare and biology". And their installations “should be inspected at least once a year”. These are all recommendations that if they were applied would see an end to these farms that cause so much suffering.
Closing all farming centres
Because we are sure that farming is incompatible with animal welfare, One Voice is demanding the closure of all these centres that raise animals for their fur. Our investigations inside these dreadful centres and the rescues we have performed bear witness to this. Neither laws nor the development of a an Origin AssuredTM label can ever enable the production of “cruelty free” fur. What’s more, like other intensive farming methods, this activity is harmful to the environment. So, what is the point, as the planet is getting hotter, in wearing fur coats if it is not to satisfy the vanity of a handful of people ?
Europe produces 70% of the world’s farmed fur.
According to the EFBA, European countries provide 67% of the overall mink production and 70% of fox production, i.e. 4.3 million fox furs per year and 29.5 million mink skins.
SAMPLES OF DEATH
• Electrocution is very painful (electrodes in the snout and anus heat up and burn) and is often a lengthy process as the current does not pass through the brain. What’s more, the voltage is not always strong enough to kill immediately.
• Poisoning. Dithillinium, a numbing poison, only paralyses foxes but does not kill them: the feel pain when they are stripped of their fur. Banned in Finland, this cheap product is widely used in Russia as it is easier to strip the fur from an animal that is still warm. Strychnine, even weed killers – which are easily available on the open market – are also used.
• Other methods are also used to kill: breaking animals’ necks, gassing them with cyanide-based chemicals, suffocating them with vehicle exhaust gas or putting them in a decompression chamber.
(Source: FIC (Institut de la fourrure du Canada))
