Fur Farming

a Business of Brutality

The fur trade was brought to North America by the first Europeans to settle on its shores, and was quickly passed on to native tribes as a means of support in the wake of their loss of land and food resources. The beaver (Castor canadensis) nearly became extinct from over-trapping, and when wild fur-bearers became too scarce for trappers to obtain south of the Canadian border, the first fur farm was created in 1866.

Fur farms are responsible for the deaths of 3 million mink (Mustela vison) every year in the United States; the animals' skins are used to make coats, their subcutaneous fat is refined to produce mink oil, and their carcasses are used in low-grade, commercial pet food. The average lifespan of a fur farm mink is seven months, as opposed to the five to ten years they could live under good conditions. While on the farm, mink are fed entirely on animal byproducts - a mixture of intestines, fish offal, rotten eggs, and spoiled milk. Byproducts are required by law to be treated with toxic chemicals before they can be sold, for the purpose of killing bacteria; these toxins are consumed by the mink, and subsequently by companion animals fed on low-grade pet foods containing mink carcasses, often listed as protein meal in the ingredients. Farmed mink are kept in excessively small cages, typically 2,000 square inches (20"x10"x10"), which do not meet their enrichment needs. They are killed using carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide gases, or by neck-breaking; it takes an average of 50 mink to make one fur coat.

Foxes, chinchillas, rabbits, ermine, and sables are a few of the other animals farmed for their fur in the United States and in Europe. Slaughtering techniques for some of these species include anal and genital electrocution, drowning, bludgeoning, and gunshot. Sable (Martes zibellina) and chinchilla (Chinchilla lanigera) coats are considered the most valuable, often commanding prices over $100,000; despite their numbers in the fur and pet trades, perhaps fewer than 10,000 chinchillas remain in the wild.

Approximately 30% of the fur bearing animals used in the industry in North America are trapped in the wild, most of them in Canada. The leg-hold traps most commonly used have been banned in 89 countries and several American states because of the cruelty they inflict, and because they are not species-specific; nearly 90% of the animals trapped in Canada are non-target species, including endangered animals and family pets. This means that for every mink coat made from trapped mink, as many as 183 non-target animals are killed and left to rot. Considering that 30% of the mink pelts used for fur clothing in North America are obtained through trapping, the average mink coat represents 15 wild mink caught in traps, 35 farmed mink, and 55 dead animals of various species, including pet dogs and cats, that were simply thrown away.

In email correspondence, Fur Commission USA president Teresa Platt stated that farm-raised mink have a high rate of survival in the wild, and conceded that no evidence exists that they are genetically distinct from wild mink. According to Platt, fur farmers "[take] wild animals and [modify] them for human benefit," however the only modification that has taken place is the intergradation of different mink subspecies, a process that occurs naturally where ranges overlap. (Read more.) Despite claims that farmed mink are a separate, domestic species, there has not been sufficient time in the short history of fur farming for such significant genetic change to occur, especially in light of the fact that the phenotypic characteristics sought after by fur farmers are the same ones selected within the framework of Darwinian evolution. That is to say that the same thick fur that gives a mink coat a high retail value is what increases a wild mink's chances of surviving the winter - mink do not need to be modified for fur production. Virtually no legislation exists on the federal level to control fur farming, and the United States Department of Agriculture classifies fur farm animals as domestic species, with no reason for doing so other than the fact that the animals are kept in cages and used in commerce. Fur farmers want mink and foxes to remain classified as domestic animals so that they will not be subject to legislation regarding wild species and to limit the scrutiny of government agencies over their operations.

Fur has no intrinsic value apart from its use in high fashion; synthetic fibers require less maintenance, cost less money, weigh less, and have better insulative properties. Fur Commission USA claims that fur is a sustainable, biodegradable fiber, and that fur farmers reduce waste by "recycling" animal byproducts, which they refer to in their promotional materials as "garbage", indicating that fur farm mink are indeed raised on a diet of waste products. In reality, fur farms produce an enormous amount of waste; Finnish fur farms produce about 150 million pounds of droppings per year, a waste product that cannot be recycled or reused in its raw form. Raw carnivore feces are far too toxic for use in fertilizers, they harbor dangerous pathogens, and excess amounts can create a build-up of phosphorus and other pollutants in watersheds, killing native fishes. The ammonia produced by fur farm animals in Finland accounts for around 5% of the airborne ammonia in that nation. Fur is marketed as environmentally friendly, but a number of the chemicals used to process fur are highly toxic, and listed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as potential carcinogens; in 1991, the Agency fined six fur coat producers a total of $2.2 million for illegally generating, storing, transporting, and disposing of these chemicals. In 1992, the Dutch Advertising Standards Authority ruled that advertisements promoting fur clothing as "ecological" were false and misleading. Perhaps most alarming is the study conducted by Ford Motor Company's Scientific Research Laboratory in 1979, in which it was discovered that the production of a faux fur coat expended 120,300 BTU (British Thermal Units), about the same amount of energy contained in a gallon of gasoline, while a coat produced from farm-raised mink expended 7,965,800 BTU, more than 66 times the energy.

Fur farmers have a powerful lobby that influences legislation on their behalf, and releases propaganda filled with unsubstantiated claims about fur products and their opponents in the animal rights and animal welfare movements. Fur farmers claim to be conservationists and proponents of animal welfare, but their actions are not in line with the values they claim to espouse. Legitimate animal welfare proponents and conservationists must join together and oppose the fur industry for its cruelty to animals, indiscriminate killing of wildlife, and pollution of the environment. Genetic studies are needed to determine if there is such a thing as a domestic mink or fox, and if there is not, the USDA must be lobbied to reclassify them as a wild species. The Canadian government must be urged to prosecute fur trappers for poaching when they kill non-target species, and to ban leg-hold traps. The United Kingdom has already made fur farming illegal, and a number of European nations are in the process of doing the same; true conservationists and proponents of animal welfare must work to ensure that the United States does not become the last stronghold for the fur industry.

Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) farming is a similar industry that raises wild animals for their skins, and brings a premature end to the lives of wild animals in captivity; most alligators on skin farms are killed at around five years of age, although they might live natural lives of about 100 years. Another wild animal, the ostrich, is also raised for its skin, and sharks are persecuted in the wild for their valuable leather. A similar practice to skin farming also takes place in the United States, but has a decidedly more sinister bent; 'Rattlesnake Roundups' still occur in a few states, in which thousands of wild rattlesnakes are captured, put on public display, used in cruel games and contests, and killed to order. Rattlesnake hunters often wipe out entire breeding colonies, as the animals are captured in their hibernation dens. Public education is needed to change opinions about these animals, which play a vital role in rodent control, and want only to be left alone.

How you can help: Do not buy fur or wild animal leather, and boycott businesses that sell items made from these products. Read labels - do not buy pet food that contains fur farm carcasses, or leather-care products containing mink oil. Tell others what you know about the fur industry. Write to government officials and urge them to illegalize the fur trade locally, statewide, or nationally.

(This article was adapted from Steve Markwell's master's thesis; contact us for a list of supporting documents.)

Posted on July 17, 2006 | Link

What is Wild?

We talk a lot about wildlife, but what does it mean? What makes an animal wild?

Animals can be divided into three, broad groups: domestic, domesticated, and wild. The distinctions are not always clear; domestication comes more in degrees than in absolutes, but at the other end of the gradient, a species' wildness is fairly definitive.

Domestic animals: a domestic species is one that has undergone considerable physical, physiological, and genetic change as a result of prolonged captivity. Domestic animals are the descendents of wild animals, but over hundreds and thousands of years, they have become better-suited to life in captivity than in the wild. Domestics are the animals that are most familiar to us, either as companions or for their use in agriculture.

Domesticated animals: Domesticated species are those that have been raised in captivity for centuries or even millennia, but their physical and physiological makeup has changed very little, if at all. An example of this is the dromedary camel, which has been used for transportation in North Africa and the Near East for thousands of years, but is more or less identical to its wild ancestors. Domesticated species have typically undergone a behavioral change as a result of captivity, however they can revert to their wild state under the right conditions.

Wild animals: Wild species are those whose physical, physiological, and behavioral characteristics have not been significantly altered by human interference; while many species have been maintained and successfully bred in captivity, their wildness has remained essentially intact.

Hybrids: There are, of course, animals that don't fit into any of our main categories because they are a mixture of two of them. A hybrid is the result of interbreeding between two species; either occurring naturally or through human design. A mule is an example of a hybrid between a domestic and a domesticated species - a horse and a donkey (some would consider a donkey to be domestic, however). In the case of mules, the resulting hybrid is sterile. Wolves and domestic dogs have been crossed with great frequency to create wolf-dogs - animals that are not exactly wild and not exactly domestic.

The controversy: Those who profit from the trade in captive wildlife continually seek to change the animals' designation, in what becomes a series of semantic arguments that may go over well in the legal world, but which do little to address the relevant issue of a given species' welfare. Perhaps the most successful misinformation campaign has been the one conducted by the fur farming lobby. Fur Commission USA maintains that the mink used in fur farming are genetically and behaviorally distinct from their wild counterparts, however no scientific study has proven this to be the case. To support their argument, FCUSA states that captive mink are hybrids, mixtures of multiple mink subspecies. The flaw in their logic is that when subspecies, genetic variations of the same species, interbreed, it is not hybridization, but intergradation - a naturally occurring phenomenon. In the wild, there is not a distinct line that separates one subspecies from the next; wild mink intergrade as a matter of course, allowing genetic material to gradually pass throughout their geographic range over many generations. Intergradation in captivity does not make the resulting animal domestic any more than intergradation in the wild produces a domestic mink; the needs of a mink born from generations in captivity are identical to those of one captured in the wild.

Similarly, crossbreeding two wild species does not create a new, domestic species, but merely a wild hybrid, with all the needs of its wild parents, but often an inability to interact socially with either of them. In some cases, hybridization occurs naturally in the wild, but usually it is only through human intervention that different species will crossbreed.

Hybrids between wild and domestic animals present the problem of determining if the offspring should be treated as one or the other. Wolf-dogs, for instance, often have difficulty interacting with pure wolves and with domestic dogs, and must be placed into their own category, but many breeders claim that they can be dealt with like domestic animals - an argument that is rooted less in fact and more in a desire to sell wolf-dogs. Breeding a hybrid between a wild and a domestic animal does not create a domestic animal that looks wild; it may create a wild animal that is a little easier to handle, or a less predictable domestic animal - again, descriptions that become bogged down in semantics and do little to describe the animal's true nature. Traits are not always blended evenly, either; a hybrid may receive the 'best' or the 'worst' characteristics from each parent, or any volatile combination thereof. For instance, some ranchers insist that the result of crosses between American bison (Bison bison) and domestic cattle, known as 'beefalo', are far more aggressive than either species.

Another argument often used is that a species can be domesticated in a short amount of time, even within just a few generations. The problem with this idea is that when we examine the process by which species have been domesticated in the past, it was long and somewhat unintentional - a process that is in fact ongoing. Another interesting element to domestication is that, at least in the case of carnivores like dogs and cats, the animals may have taken the first steps. Wolves may have learned that human beings were a source of an easy meal well before people discovered the benefit of having a guard dog and a hunting companion. Some scientists believe that the feral dogs, or 'pariah dogs', found in proximity to human habitation throughout the world may not be descendents of domestic animals, but rather the descendents of wolves in an early stage of association with human beings. Cats may have initiated their own domestication merely out of a desire to hunt the rodents that human settlements tended to attract. In contrast, attempts have been made over thousands of years to domesticate ferrets for rodent control, but the arrangement never held up over the long term; today's 'pet' ferrets exhibit little if any of the behaviors that make domestic cats such good companions. This may be due to a lack of inclination among wild ferrets to voluntarily associate with human beings.

Why does it matter? Apart from legal designations, whether or not an animal is wild is important because it defines its niche in the world; should the species live with us in our homes, or is another environment more suited to its needs? Wild animals are ideally suited to life in the wild, just as domestic animals are ideally suited to life in captivity - it seems obvious, but proponents of the wildlife trade have sought to erase the distinction. Few would dispute the cruelty of abandoning a domestic dog in the woods to fend for itself, but forcing a wolf to live as a domestic dog is equally harsh. We can make captive life resemble life in the wild to some degree, and it has its benefits, like safety and scheduled feedings, but wildlife rescuers would prefer it if all wild animals lived in the wild, and keeping our definitions accurate is one way that we can work to that end. For those that tragically must live their lives as captives, we must address their needs as those of wild animals, not attempt to bend them to our own misguided desires.

Posted on July 17, 2006 | Link

Pseudo-Sanctuaries

Don't Be Fooled!

There are a number of impostors pretending to be legitimate animal sanctuaries. Some are no more than filthy, roadside zoos, while others are even more sinister, soliciting donations from the public while they breed and sell animals to hunting ranches, meat markets, and anyone else with the money to buy them. As an animal welfare advocate, you must carefully scrutinize any facility claiming to be an animal sanctuary before you give your support. Here are some things to look for:

1. Is the facility accredited by ASA, TAOS, or ACE? If not, why not?
2. Is the facility a licensed, nonprofit (501(c)(3)) corporation? If it's not, what is it?
3. Are the facility's financial reports easy to obtain? How is it funded?
4. Does the facility have all the necessary licenses from the USDA and its state wildlife agency?
5. Is it open to the public? Do they charge at the gate? What's their reasoning for doing this?
6. Do the animals perform for visitors? If the animals are doing tricks, it's not a real sanctuary.
7. Have you seen them in the news lately? Was the coverage positive? Check the internet for news stories that may tell you what they're really up to.
8. Are the animals allowed to breed? Where do the babies go? Unless the breeding is part of a legitimate conservation program, it's not a sanctuary.
9. Are animals offered for sale? If so, it's absolutely not a sanctuary.
10. Do staff and volunteers react with suspicion to your questions? Be suspicious in return.
11. Are there animals that visitors aren't allowed to see? Sometimes there are good reasons for this, but ask why.
12. How well-constructed is the facility? Is it clean? How do the animals look? Is it safe?

If you are unsure, call your local humane society and your state wildlife agency; they might know something about the facility. You can also contact ASA, TAOS, or ACE, who might be familiar with the sanctuary in question.

Posted on July 12, 2006 | Link

Enrichment is Crucial

Our Director's Perspective

Enrichment is a term that is thrown around in zoos and sanctuaries with great frequency. What is it, and why is it so important?

The term can be defined in a number of ways, but I think of enrichment as the way we help animals to forget that they live in captivity. We accomplish this with the way we create their environments and with the activities we design for them. With that in mind, there are two kinds of enrichment: environmental and behavioral.

Environmental Enrichment: Environmental enrichment is the method by which we use an animal's surroundings to provide healthy stimulation.
In the wild, animals are faced with new situations and must solve a new set of problems on a daily basis; captive life can become somewhat stale by comparison, and in the worst cases, it's nothing short of misery. By designing an animal's environment properly, we can minimize the monotony of captivity. There are a few, key ways in which this is done:

• The size of the habitat: Most animals are more active when they have more space; just as you wouldn't go jogging in your bathroom, an animal will be less active when it is confined. By increasing the size of an animal's enclosure, we give it more room to move. There is a point at which an animal will not make use of all the space it is given, however; I have observed tigers in a sixty five-acre enclosure that spent perhaps 90% of their time on only a 20-acre portion of it. An enclosure that is too large can also make an animal feel vulnerable; fences don't just keep animals in - they keep enemies out (or at least they create that perception). Additionally, the size of the enclosure by itself is not enough to enrich an animal's environment. The habitat has to also be engaging.

• Points of interest: Wild cats on the African savanna routinely visit scent posts, usually large trees, which they mark with urine and with the scent glands in their paws. These points of interest are an important part of their daily ritual, and for captive animals, particularly the more intelligent species, they are no less important. A point of interest can be an old stump where many animals leave their scent marks, or a high vantage point from which an animal can survey its territory. It can be a fruit tree where a captive bear can get a snack or a pile of boulders where rabbits hide. For rhinoceros, it's a dung heap; for bison, a wallow; for wild elephants on the African plains, it's the graveyard where they collect and revisit the bones of their dead. Points of interest are those favorite spots that the animal visits often, if not every day.

• Visual barriers: Studies conducted at zoos have shown that an animal's activity level increases in relation to the number of visual barriers in its enclosure. A visual barrier is anything that breaks up the plane, like a hill, a boulder, a tree, or a fallen log. These barriers seem to beckon animals to see what's on the other side, thereby promoting more activity. I have seen this theory hold true with all kinds of wild animals, but I have also tested it on domestic dogs. When walking along a logging road in the Olympic National Forest, the dogs are fairly active, but if I take them off the road, into the deep woods, they immediately begin to run as fast as they can, weaving between trees and leaping over rotting logs, chasing each other and having the time of their lives. Visual barriers also help animals make sense of their surroundings. The dogs at Olympic Animal Sanctuary used to run from one end of the back yard to the other; at one end, there was an apple tree that they ran around, but at the other end there were no plants, and the dogs would run to the fence and stop, appearing to be confused about which way to go next. They often collided into one another at that end of the yard. I planted a small pine tree and everything changed; they ran a figure-eight pattern around the apple tree and the pine tree. Consider our system of roads and highways; visual barriers tell us what path to follow much in the same way.

• A safe place: Every animal needs a safe place, usually a den box or a similar place to hide and to be protected from the elements. Providing this simple consideration is quite easy, although many facilities fail to do so. Just as we feel the need to close our doors and lock up before we go to sleep each night, animals need a place to confine themselves, where no one else can get in.

Behavioral Enrichment: In addition to enrichment that encourages animals to be active and makes sense of their environments, we have another kind of enrichment that is meant to stimulate natural behaviors and mental activity. This is behavioral enrichment, and it can be something as simple as going for a walk, or as complex as solving a difficult puzzle. Behavioral and environmental enrichment are not mutually exclusive; the two are used in conjunction with one another and the line between them is often blurred.

Behavioral enrichment usually centers around an activity: swimming, climbing, playing, or solving a problem. Animal caretakers design enrichment activities for individual species and sometimes for individual animals. There are many examples of successful behavioral enrichment activities: giving chimpanzees pieces of fruit that have been frozen into blocks of ice; marking an animal's habitat with aromatic spices and extracts; hiding bits of food in the enclosure. When you throw a tennis ball for a dog or play with a piece of string with your cat, you are engaging the animal in behavioral enrichment, stimulating natural hunting behaviors in your pet.

The best enrichment activities give animals problems to solve, and reward them when they are successful. For one of the sanctuary dogs, I throw a rubber ball into a 300-gallon tub of water; the ball sinks to the bottom, and he must feel for it with his feet. When he finds it, he submerges and comes up with the ball in his mouth; when we first began this activity, he spent hours in the water, figuring out how to find and retrieve the ball. When he was successful, I rewarded him with praise, and by throwing the ball again, not necessarily into the water every time.

Even seemingly simple-minded animals like reptiles can benefit from behavioral enrichment; this is usually accomplished with the way we feed them. Providing live crickets or mealworms to iguanas can stimulate them to chase down and capture prey, giving them valuable exercise in the process. By using humanely pre-killed rodents to mimic live ones, we can stimulate natural hunting and striking behaviors in snakes prior to feeding, without the risk of the prey biting them back.

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Enrichment is more than a big cage and a toy to play with; it is a well-planned, well-executed program that makes animals forget they are in captivity, while maintaining the safety of the animals and their human caretakers. This undertaking is not always easy, but it is crucial to the physical and psychological welfare of the animals. Many in the scientific community are hesitant to attribute emotions to animals, but anyone with a dog or cat knows that pet's capacity for happiness or misery, and wild animals possess that same capacity. Simply put, I believe in enrichment programs because they make the animals happy. I've seen a marked difference between animals that have enrichment and those that do not -- even when all their other needs are met quite well, the animal without an enrichment program suffers. The challenge to create effective enrichment for every animal is a difficult one, but it is a worthy undertaking, and vital to the welfare of every captive animal.

Posted on July 12, 2006 | Link

Why be Accredited?

There are three accrediting associations in the United States: the American Sanctuary Association (ASA), The Association Of Sanctuaries (TAOS), and Animal Centers of Excellence (ACE). Each was formed for the purpose of creating a support framework for sanctuaries, helping to facilitate rescues, and to establish standards for animal care that legitimize true sanctuaries, distinguishing them from the 'pseudo-sanctuaries'. The only way to be certain of an animal sanctuary's credibility, short of spending several days or weeks on-site, is to check its accreditation. Some of the best facilities have accreditations from more than one association.

Like all organizations, accrediting associations have their political overtones; for some sanctuaries, this has been cited as a reason not to join. Others claim they don't want to be told how to do their work. However, we feel it is worth the occasional headache to reap the benefits of accreditation, not the least of which is being tapped into a network of experienced animal rescuers. In our experience, facilities lack accreditation for one reason - they can't get it, due to substandard conditions and breaches of ethics. We believe that all, legitimate sanctuaries in the United States should be accredited by ASA, TAOS, or ACE. ACE also accredits facilities in other countries, and organizations like the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) can lend them credibility as well.

Posted on July 12, 2006 | Link