Humane World for Animals has carried out undercover investigations around the world to reveal the realities of the fur trade, and no matter where the fur comes from, animal suffering is constant.
Finland
One of the largest fur farming counties in Europe, Finland’s fur trade boasts of ‘high welfare' and states that almost 100% of its fox fur farms are certified by the SAGA scheme (including the WelFur protocol). The country has hundreds of fur farms where millions of mink, raccoon dogs and both arctic and red foxes are bred and killed for their fur each year. Our investigations, often in partnership with Finnish animal protection organisation Oikeutta Eläimille, have revealed obese “monster foxes” with unnaturally excessive skin folds from selective breeding to increase their fur yield, and mink with raw open wounds engaged in fighting with cage mates and even cannibalism.
China
As the largest supplier of fur pelts in the world, fur farms in China confine millions of foxes, raccoon dogs and mink in tiny cages each year. Investigations have found animals displaying stereotypical behaviours, pacing around their dirty, decrepit cages, and housed directly above their own faeces. Killing methods have included ineptly administered electrocution causing paralysis, bludgeoning, and even animals skinned alive. Disturbing evidence has also been uncovered of meat from the slaughtered farm animals being sold to local restaurants for human consumption.
Romania
Our undercover investigators filmed the first ever expose of chinchilla fur farms in Romania, documenting the terrible conditions these animals were subjected to for their fur. Confined in small, filthy, wire mesh cages stacked three or four on top of each other, row upon row, in windowless “farm” rooms, the animals were housed directly above piles of excrement accumulating under each cage. Baby chinchillas struggled to walk on the wire cage floor, their legs slipping through the mesh, and adult chinchillas were filmed frantically chewing at the bars.
United States
As part of our mission to rescue hundreds of foxes, raccoons and coyotes from a fur and urine farms in Ohio, we documented the terrible conditions in which these animals were housed, kept in filthy wire-bottomed cages with little to no protection from the frigid condition. Some of the animals were missing toes, ears, tails and limbs, others displayed stereotypical behaviour, circling and pacing repetitively in their tiny cages.
A joint investigation into the trapping industry revealed terrible suffering of animals caught in archaic traps, including raccoons that were bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat, a fox who had struggled so hard to free himself from a leghold trap that his leg had snapped clean through, and the bloody toe of a coyote, torn-off and left in the the jaws of the trap during the animal’s escape.
Read more
Five Freedoms and the international fur trade
Furmark. 10 Reasons why Furmark will not protect consumers or animals
Trapped: Exposing the violence of animal trapping in the US, 2022
JoAnne McArthur/We Animals