BLIND RAGE: Animal rights group releases undercover video of shocking conditions inside Finnish fur farms
The video reveals the conditions in which the foxes live. Trapped inside small, wire mesh cages, over-bred to huge sizes, and suffering from eye disease and infections.
DANIEL HARPER: An animal rights group has published a shocking video of animal cruelty within Finnish fur farms revealing obese, infection-ridden foxes trapped in small cages and cubs feeding on their dead siblings. With nearly a million pelts produced annually, Finland is Europe’s leading producer of certified fox fur, second in the world after China…
Finnish animal rights group Oikeutta Elaimille (Justice for Animals) shared unpublished footage with AFP it said was filmed undercover inside six different Finnish fur farms in 2022. The new footage highlights the controversy over the Nordic country’s fur industry, which is fighting calls to have it outlawed with footage showing obese and infected foxes living in mesh cages…
The footage reveals the conditions in which the foxes live, trapped inside small, wire mesh cages. In the video, they can be seen suffering from eye disease and infections in ears and tails. ‘The conditions of the animals in these farms are downright appalling,’ activist Kristo Muurimaa told AFP. The foxes are unable to fulfil their natural behavioural needs in the cramped cages, exposing them ‘to various behavioural disorders’ such as compulsive pacing back and forth, Muurimaa said.
Oikeutta Elaimille also said the foxes were ‘over-bred to huge sizes’, leading to health issues such as warped skin and painful eye infections… ‘Fur farming should have been banned in Finland by now and I think it is shameful that this has not yet been done’, Left Alliance MP Mai Kivela told AFP… Finland’s animal protection law ‘is lagging far behind European standards’, Muurimaa argued, ‘All Finnish fur farms are more or less the same from an animal point of view,’.
In December, a European Citizens Initiative calling for an EU-wide ban on the fur industry reached one million signatures, the number required to trigger a response from the Commission. The initiative urges the EU to follow a growing number of member states in outlawing the practice, which it considers ‘inherently cruel’. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s Social Democratic Party decided in 2020 to support a ban, following in the footsteps of the Left Alliance and Greens.
But those favouring an outright ban are still in the minority in Finland’s parliament, as the 360-million-euro export industry is considered vital to some rural areas… In 2021, Austria and the Netherlands urged the EU to end fur farming, a call supported by Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and Slovakia.But the breeders’ association in Finland says any EU ban would be against the bloc’s rules. SOURCE…
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