Claire Bass, executive director of HSI/UK, who participated in the investigation, described it, 'These poor young animals have zero quality of life, they exist only as vessels for their fur, as broken and tormented souls.'
HSI: ‘In a sad reminder of the fact that the battle against fur is far from over, recently released video footage from an undercover investigation of fur farms in Finland, documents the terrible suffering millions of animals continue to endure for this completely unnecessary commodity.
The footage was captured by investigators from the Humane Society International (HSI)/United Kingdom (UK) and the Finnish animal protection group Oikeutta Eläimille, who visited 13 farms over a course of seven months between April and October this year.
It shows hundreds of foxes and mink suffering in small, barren and filthy battery cages. There are tiny fox cubs struggling to walk across wire floors of their cages, their tiny feet constantly slipping through the holes. There are animals with eye infections and gaping wounds, including a mink with a large, bloody hole in the head. Some animals lie dead in the cages and others eat them or walk over them.
As Claire Bass, executive director of HSI/UK, who participated in the investigation, described it, “These poor young animals have zero quality of life, they exist only as vessels for their fur, as broken and tormented souls”…
It is hard for any animal lover to stomach such cruelty, and this has been a difficult process for Claire and others involved in this investigation. But we did this because we want to shine a light on the cruelty of fur and especially Finland’s fur farms, which produce and export large quantities of fur each year, including to the United States and the United Kingdom.
Finland is in fact the largest producer of fox fur in Europe. Each year, 2.5 million foxes are raised on the approximately 800 fur farms in this country – and killed – for the global fur trade. The only other country that farms more foxes for fur is China…
The video has grabbed the attention of some powerful voices in the country, and led to several members of parliament in the U.K. to issue strong statements calling on the government to take swift action to ban the sale of animal fur. Next month, we will screen the footage at the European Parliament, followed by a roundtable debate on animal welfare problems associated with fur farming.
Participants will include Fur Europe and the European Commission. Our #FurFree Britain campaign has also gathered more than half a million signatures from animal lovers in support of a U.K. fur sales ban, and it is supported by a host of celebrities, including Stella McCartney, Dame Judi Dench, Andy Murray, Paloma Faith and Ricky Gervais, who have been amplifying our message against fur among their followers’. SOURCE…
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