Fur Farming

Millions of fur-bearing animals including foxes, raccoons, minks, beavers, otters, and others suffer and die on fur farms each year.

85% of the fur industry’s skins come from animals living captive in fur factory farms.

The other 15% percent of the fur sold comes from animals caught in the wild.

If you stop and think about it for a second, you will quickly realise that traps are indiscriminate: they catch anything that stumbles upon them. Every year many unsuspecting animals – like dogs, cats, birds, and other animals, including endangered species, are 'accidentally' crippled or killed by traps. The trappers call these animals 'trash kills' because they have no market value, and most are simply just thrown away. Any animals who manage to survive the ordeal are released and often die later from their injuries.

You wouldn’t wear your dog or cat’s fur would you?

More than fifty percent of the finished fur garments imported for sale across the world are from China. A lot of fur from China comes from cats and dogs and is often deliberately mislabeled as mink or fox to be sold to unsuspecting customers. So think about this the next time you consider a coat with a fur trim... there's no way to tell whose skin you're wearing!

Animals raised for their fur live in shocking conditions, not much different to caged chickens. Rabbits only have the floor space of two shoeboxes!

Species like the mink would usually occupy 2,500 acres in the wild, not far from riverbanks or wetlands, and spend up to 70% of their life in the water. On fur farms they are forced to live in cages which don’t allow them to take more than 5 paces forward or back, and obviously no where near the water they love. They live a solitary life, therefore when living in crowded cages it causes them undue stress, which can often lead to self mutilation.

Foxes may also lead a solitary life, only meeting up for breeding season. Some do live in family groups, but keep away from other packs. In confinement they have been found to cannibalize each other as a reaction to their crowded living space. They live in cages about 40cm square… with another fox! It is estimated that fox farmers lose 20% of their animals prematurely – half of those deaths result from cannibalism.

Chinchillas are another favourite to the fashion industry due to their thick coats. As many as 60 hairs sprout out of one follicle. They are very social little animals, living in colonies among rocks or living deep burrows. They are quite partial to a dust bath! Therefore they don’t live very well in an open mesh cage – nowhere to hide, nowhere to bathe.

Chinchilla farmers proudly admit that most of their chinchillas are killed by breaking their necks or by electrocution. The chinchilla is a small animal (slightly larger than a squirrel), and it can take as many as up to 150 of them to die in order to make a single full-length fur coat! Although it is illegal to hunt wild chinchillas, the wild animals are now on the verge of becoming extinct because of the illegal hunting that continues.

In China, there are no regulations governing fur farms - farmers can keep and slaughter the animals however they see fit – which means usually skinning the animals alive to keep costs low. The animals get thrown onto a pile on other dead animals, often with their hearts still beating, their eyes still blinking.

In other countries death usually comes by anal or vaginal electrocution. Many chinchilla farmers hook one metal clamp to the ear, and another to her genitalia to implement the electrocution. Being electrocuted causes the animal to have an excruciating heart attack. Other cruel methods include gassing, being poisoned with strychnine injections, or breaking their neck.

None of the above methods are always 100% effective and some animals "wake up" while being skinned.

So don't buy fur. Animals grow it keep themselves warm, not us.