Friday 30th December 2005
PRESS RELEASE FROM COMPASSION IN WORLD FARMING - IRELAND
Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), Ireland’s leading farm animal welfare group, welcomes in the New Year and steps up its
campaign to ban fur farming in Ireland.
Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) sees out the old year in good spirits with the successful completion of its Stop the Bull Ship campaign to end subsidies for live cattle exports to the Middle East. Following an EU decision made at the end of December, subsidies for live cattle exports to the Middle East finished at midnight on 23rd December 2005.
In 2006, CIWF will focus its energies on its campaign to Ban Fur Farming in the Republic of Ireland, where there are currently 6 mink farms, one of which also has silver and Arctic foxes. Fur farming is already illegal in Northern Ireland. It is also illegal in Britain and Austria, and is being phased out in Italy.
Mary-Anne Bartlett, Director of CIWF in Ireland, says
“We believe that fur farming is damaging to the agricultural image of Ireland as a country that takes farm animal welfare seriously. There is a future for Irish agriculture in the production of high quality food to the very best environmental, food safety and animal welfare standards. But fur farming does not fit with this image. A ban on fur farming would mean the whole island of Ireland would be free of fur farming.”
CIWF is encouraged by the fact that when a Bill to ban fur farming was put before the Dail in March 2005 by the Green Party, the Bill was supported by all opposition parties and many independent TDs. This makes fur farming an obvious election issue.
We know already know that the public are sympathetic to a ban on fur farming. An opinion poll* in the Republic of Ireland in October 2004 showed that 63% of people want fur farming banned and 95% of people do not ever wear a fur coat.” (*Opinion Poll by Millward Brown IMS)
Information on fur farming in Ireland
Fur farming is highly intensive, with mink and foxes confined in rows of battery-style cages. In the Republic of Ireland, about 140,000 farmed mink and several hundred farmed Arctic and silver foxes are killed each year just for their fur pelts, which are then exported to other countries for processing.
At present, there are 6 mink farms operating in the Republic of Ireland (3 in Co. Donegal, and one each in Co. Laois, Co. Kerry and Co. Sligo) and one farm with silver and Arctic foxes. The trade is worth only 1.9 million Euro to the Irish economy (2004 figure, cited in the Dail debate on fur farming) and employs a small number of people (precise employment figures are not available, according to the Minister for Agriculture).
Farmed mink and foxes are confined in small cages from birth until they are pulled out to be slaughtered at about 6 months old. Foxes are killed by anal to mouth electrocution; mink are gassed in boxes containing 50 to 70 animals which are filled with carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide gas.
CIWF argues that fur farming is not like any other type of farming. Farmed mink and foxes have only been bred in captivity for about a hundred years and are therefore still essentially wild, unlike pigs and cattle that have been domesticated over thousands of years. Also, farmed mink and foxes are only reared and killed to produce a frivolous, non-essential fashion material.
ENDS