Fur Farming Talk for World Vegetarian Day, 2nd October 2005

“FUR - A FASHION TO BE ASHAMED OF.”

Our campaign

Compassion in World Farming - Ireland is campaigning for fur farming to be banned in the Republic of Ireland, where there are 6 mink farms, one of which also has foxes.

Bans in other countries

Fur farming is already illegal in Northern Ireland - they felt so strongly about it that they banned it even though there were no fur farms there at the time. Fur farming is also illegal in Britain and Austria and is being phased out in Italy. Fox farming is being phased out in Sweden and the Netherlands.

Models would rather go naked and then wear fur

We all know about those supermodels who got in the papers because they “would rather go naked than wear fur” …. and then got in the papers again every single time they wore fur after that! The fact is, supermodels’ careers depend on publicity and some of them clearly place that ahead of any ethical concerns about cruelty to animals.

Paul Costelloe comes out anti fur

We were delighted when, during the Dáil debate on a Bill to ban fur farming earlier this year, Irish fashion designer Paul Costelloe came out against fur. He said that wearing fur is “a touch of vulgarity” and pointed out that there is no need for fur anymore, especially in these islands.

Fashion week and ‘Fur is back’?

Every year, coinciding with Fashion Week, we see headlines saying “Fur is back”. In fact the statistics don’t back this up. World-wide, the trade in fur is more or less stable, with about 40 million animals a year killed for the fur industry. In Ireland, production of fox pelts has actually gone down because apparently the fur breeders were not getting a good enough price.

Less fur coats, more trim

Whilst we don’t see so many fur coats (you know, those ones made out of 40 dead minks that our granny’s wore) …. sadly real fur is still about. There is quite a lot of fur trim used at the minute, e.g. on collars, scarves made out of bobbles of fur, fur around hoods, etc. A lot of this nowadays is fake fur but it can be very difficult now to know the difference.

Real or fake

Some real fur is even dyed an unnatural colour - e.g. red or blue - or shaved into a pattern, so that it’s really hard to tell it’s real fur. Maybe the designers think real fur sells better if people think it’s not real fur!

THE FUR PRODUCERS’ MYTHICAL ARGUMENTS:

Fur producers and designers who use fur argue that:

Lets examine each of these myths:

Myth 1 - fur farming is not cruel

Mink and fox farming certainly is not humane. The European Commission’s scientific panel of top scientists and vets looked at the wealth of scientific research done on fur farming. They concluded, based on this science, that fur farming causes “serious problems for all species of animals reared for fur”.

Actually, you don’t need to be a scientist or a vet; anyone with just a little understanding of animals can see for themselves. But fur farms are hidden away so very few people ever do see inside. However, CIWF and Respect for Animals have filmed inside some fur farms in the Republic of Ireland during an undercover investigation.

We saw rows of tiny wire mesh cages holding mink. The cages were just 10” wide. They had a small nestbox. Fox cages were about 4 foot by 4 foot floor area by about 28 inches high. These were barren wire mesh boxes.

We saw animals carrying out repeated meaningless behaviours, climbing up and down the sides of their cages over and over and over again …. fox pacing up and down the length of their cage, well all 4 foot of it. Stereotypical behaviours are a well-known sign of stress. These animals do this because what else can they do? No place to run or dig, no water to swim in for mink, which are semi-aquatic and always live near water in the wild.

To remind you of the scale of the problem, here are the figures. Ireland is not a big fur farming country - there are just 6 farms and the whole industry is worth only €1.9 million to the Irish economy (2004 figure) and about 20 jobs. There are about 140,000 mink in Ireland reared and killed each year, and several hundred silver and Arctic fox.

And, although the fur breeders keep saying fur farming is very highly regulated, at present you don’t even need a licence to set up a fox farm!

Myth 2 - fur farming is like any other type of farming

Well no actually, it isn’t at all like any other type of farming. Cattle and pigs have been bred over thousands of years to be domesticated and adapted to life on a farm. Mink and fox have only been bred in captivity for about 100 years, and selection has been for fur quality, not for domestication. So whilst farmed fox and mink are bred on the farm, they are still essentially wild. Again, scientific evidence has shown this.

Furthermore, efforts to breed fox to be domesticated have run into difficulties because it affects the fur quality, and that is paramount. One recent attempt to breed domesticated fox resulted in foxes with short tails and depigmented hair.

Myth 3 - their coats are good so they must be healthy

Farmed mink and fox are only kept for about 6 months before they’re killed, so they are still very young animals. The kill is timed to follow the first moult when their fur is fresh and unmarked. The animals are slaughtered in such a way that there is no damage to their pelt. Most fox are electrocuted and mink are gassed. Killing takes place on the farm, and does not have to be done by a veterinarian. There is no requirement for a veterinarian even to be present.

Myth 4 - they must be happy or they wouldn’t breed

We hear this argument over and over again, not just about fur animals but about everything: e.g. if battery hens weren’t happy they wouldn’t lay eggs. If only it was true. But the sad fact is that animals - and humans - breed whether they’re happy or not.

Myth 5 - fur is the same as leather

Fur is not the same as leather. Leather is from domesticated farm animals, and it is usually a by-product of animals used for meat. Fur is from essentially wild, or sometimes actual wild animals, and the bodies of farmed mink and fox are not used, they are disposed of by rendering.

Are there alternatives to factory fur farm conditions?

In an interview with Gerry Ryan a week or so ago, he suggested that instead of banning fur farming in Ireland we should look at better ways of keeping fox and mink. I told him how, in the wild, Arctic fox in Iceland and Greenland roam across huge areas of snowy wasteland, and that I really didn’t think fur farmers in Ireland were going to be able to give them that here. The same with silver fox (which are a variety of the normal red fox): there’s no way fur farmers are going to give them fields and woodlands, and there’s certainly no way that they’re going to give mink the water to swim in that they crave.

Dáil debate

I mentioned before that, earlier this year, the Dáil debated a Bill to ban fur farming put forward by the Green Party. It was a wonderful debate with some brilliant anti-fur farming speeches … and by the end of it, every political party except the Government parties supported the Bill! It was only because the Government voted down the Bill that it was defeated by just 17 votes (50:67). This is a clear indication that fur farming is not a good thing in the view of many politicians.

We don’t need fur

Fur is only a fashion material, and one that we don’t need. There are plenty of nice alternatives - a bit of a challenge to designers to produce beautiful fashion without cruelty! We argue that there is no justification whatsoever for causing suffering to animals just to produce a frivolous material.

CIWF firmly believes that fur is a fashion to be ashamed of. Our message is: Don’t wear fur; choose kind clothes.

Help support CIWF's campaigns for better farm animal welfare.