Even though breeding farms exist, 15% of the animals used by the fur industry are caught in the wild. Regulations and the development of new trapping tools are unable to prevent animals caught in traps from suffering terribly.
The existence of animal fur breeding centres does not prevent animals being taken from the wild. Trapping has become a legal and regulated activity. In Canada, for example, a major fur producing country, 80 000 trappers hunt a defined quota of beavers, muskrats, coyotes, squirrels and racoons – in total, nearly half of the skins produced each year in this country.
The ecological balance turned upside down
But their traps do not just catch the animals the hunters are looking for. The traps make no distinction. It is estimated that trapping destroys twice as many animals as the species they are looking for, turning the ecological balance upside down. But not just this. Although governments are trying to take account of animal “welfare” in their legislation, there are no traps that prevent animals suffering slowly and agonisingly before they die.
Objects of torture
The leg-hold trap has been banned in many countries; yet the other traps that are still used remain objects of torture. Animals suffer so much that they will mutilate themselves to try and get out of them. An American study showed that 27% of mink, 24% of racoons and 26% of foxes had mutilate themselves. In addition, autopsies carried out on Arctic foxes found pieces of their own bodies in their stomachs: parts of feet, claws, pieces of bone and especially teeth as these very often break on the metal when they try to escape.
A slow agony
Three quarters of animals die imprisoned in traps. But they do not die quickly. They die of hunger or thirst or eaten by another wild animal. They are only killed by trappers if they hurry. Animals often lie in agony for several days before they are put out of their misery.
Since 2007 legislation has been demanding the use of new, more “humane” trapping methods: “agreements on “cruelty-free” international trapping standards” have been signed; trapping is still a cruel activity, devoid of any humanity that One Voice condemns. Through its actions the association is working to abolish this right to barbarism.
In 1863, the famous naturalist Charles Darwin condemned leg-hold traps, indicating that they lead “thousands of animals into extremely painful agony, often lasting 8 or 10 hours before death puts an end to their suffering". He asked his British compatriots to act against “such a terrifying sum of cruelty”.
Waiting for death…
Experiments have shown that even a trap that grinds under water (with jaws too, but also “X” shaped or “mass book” models) and which is supposed to be "more humane" does not remove the agony for animals: it takes mink on average two and a half minutes to lose consciousness, and between three and four minutes for a muskrat. Beavers struggle for nine and a half minutes, with their brain functioning for much longer and their heart only stopping after 15 minutes, on average still.
