Sick and distressed animals ‘causing risk to humans’
Pelts used only for fashion accessories
FILTHY fur farms packed full of sick, distressed animals are potential breeding grounds for deadly new pandemics, experts warn.
These grim scenes were filmed at 13 farms in China, the world’s largest fur producer, last November and December.
Campaigners say distressing sights of mentally ill animals being kept in tiny wire cages are systemic to the fur industry and can also be seen in farms across Europe and North America.
At one Chinese farm, raccoon dogs were so ineptly electrocuted that experts say they will have been rendered paralysed but still conscious, experiencing a slow, agonising cardiac arrest.
Foxes were pacing their cages – a sign of mental decline. Some cages were littered with blood and flesh from butchered animals.
One farmer said meat from slaughtered fur animals is sold to local restaurants to be eaten by unsuspecting diners.
Scientists say the stress of being held captive damages animals’ immune systems and increases the scale of “virus shedding”, putting us all at risk of zoonotic diseases – those spreading from to humans. Covid-19 is thought to have jumped from a pangolin infected by bats to humans at a market in Wuhan.
CLAIRE BASS OF HUMANE SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL
“virus factories”. In 2019, China reared 14 million foxes, 13.5m raccoon dogs and 11.6m mink. In that year, the UK imported £5.3million of fur from China alone.
The Mirror and Humane Society International/UK, which captured the footage, are calling for an immediate ban on the sale of fur products in the UK.
Animal welfare group Four Paws has written to the UN and WHO calling for fur farms and live animal markets to be “urgently phased out” to prevent future pandemics. HSI says none of the fur farms followed biosecuanimals
Tiny wire cages leave animals mentally ill
Experts say fur farms, wet markets and other situations where wild, distressed animals are kept in close proximity are rity measures. There were at least 422 Covid outbreaks at 289 European and North American mink farms from last April to February. More than 100 million animals are bred for fur a year.
The UK shut its last fur farm in 2003 but it has imported pelts worth over £800m since.
Claire Bass, executive director of HSI/UK said: “Fur farms are not only places of enormous animal suffering, but they can also act as virus factories.
“We don’t need frivolous fur fashion or these unnecessary reservoirs for coronaviruses.”
HSI handed a dossier of its evidence to Chinese authorities. ■ Sign its petition at: hsi.org/ furfreebritain
Fur farms are virus reservoirs and places of enormous suffering