Thought I’d talk a bit about this latest ‘expose’ of Finnish fur farms and why footage like this should be judged with caution.
Finnish animal rights group Oikeutta Elaimille (Justice for Animals) shared unpublished footage with AFP it said was filmed undercover inside six different Finnish fur farms in 2022.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 Finnish Fur Breeders’ Association FIFUR, which certifies farms to ensure animal health, confirmed to AFP that they had approved four of the farms identified by the activists.
AFP has published videos and pictures from these four certified farms.
Hard to find exact numbers but it seems there’s somewhere around 600 fur farms in Finland. Six out of six hundred is pretty small and doesn’t necessarily represent the entire industry. Sadly, when it comes to animals there will always be those who cut corners and don’t maintain proper welfare standards. The same is true in dairy and meat farming and other animal industries. Even when it comes to pets you get bad owners who abuse their animals. That does not mean all pet owners are like this anymore than this footage means all fur farms operate this way.
Also, while it claims the footage and images come from six farms, very few foxes are actually shown. Can we be sure that the footage did not just come from one or two bad farms, but other farms visited were included to make it seem worse?
FIFUR said they showed the footage to the producers but “they cannot recognize their animals from it except maybe one silver fox”.
However, to investigate the claims, FIFUR veterinarians “will still be visiting farms in the coming days”.
Hopefully if things at these farms are as bad as stated then something will be done about it. I don’t know much about animal welfare laws in Finland but I presume at least some of what was shown would be illegal if true, in which case the farm owners ought to be prosecuted.
Now, lets discuss the video. I’ll post screenshots from it rather than the whole video so I can talk about different issues raised.
While cages may seem small, and would certainly not be ideal long term, as previously discussed on this blog, farm foxes are generally culled between 6-10 months old. For this period of time the cages can be considered acceptable. Breeding animals kept for longer often get larger cages and access to nest boxes. Good farms also provide the foxes with enrichment, such as bones, logs and toys that can keep them occupied. If a farm isn’t providing enrichment then it is not a good farm.
The footage only shows two foxes ‘pacing’. Most of the animals in the footage seem quite calm and are behaving normally, even showing curiosity that suggests these foxes are well accustomed to human activity. Being socialised to humans is considered an important part of farm fox welfare. While this pacing behaviour can be a sign of welfare issues, in the context of the video it seems highly likely they are acting this way out of fear and/or stress.
Having a bunch of activists break in at night, making noise and shining bright lights and cameras at the foxes can be very disturbing and frightening for them. It’s understandable they would act with fear and be trying to get away from these people. You can’t make any firm conclusions about these foxes behaviour when they’re being put into this stressful situation.
Here, we report the first direct observations of cannibalistic necrophagy in red foxes Vulpes vulpes. Our photographs of this behavior prompt speculation on the role of cannibalism in fox population dynamics and intraspecific disease transmission. We placed six fox and seven lamb carcasses of similar size to determine possible differences in the scavenging behavior of red foxes between dead conspecifics and heterospecifics. Conspecific necrophagy was recorded at all fox carcasses, involving foxes scavenging fox carcasses at different stages of decay. Carcass detection time by foxes was similar at both fox and lamb carcasses, but lambs were completely consumed in a shorter period, evidencing a preference for heterospecific consumption.
As before, cannibalism in a farm setting could be a sign of welfare issues, but it could also just be foxes exhibiting natural behaviours as they would in the wild. If cannibalism is happening because the animals are stressed, or carcasses aren’t being removed quickly or animals are dying from neglect then that is an issue. But young animals are very fragile and inevitably some will die even with the best care. If this happens in the night then a sibling may start eating the carcass before anyone has had a chance to remove it. Once again, there’s too many variables to say for sure whether this is a case of neglect or not.
@orangelionfurandtaxidermy has already talked about the issue of monster blue foxes here. In short, this practice is highly looked down on and only done by a few farms. Fur auction houses like SAGA furs do not allow the sale of pelts over a certain size to try and prevent this practice. No good farm would be raising these animals. Side note, but since a lot of this footage was taken in spring many of the foxes are shedding their winter coats, making them look neglected when in reality this is a natural process all foxes go through. This is a common tactic anti-fur activists use to frame the foxes as being sickly and abused.
The footage shows a couple of injured foxes. Unfortunately sometimes animals do get sick or injured. Anyone who owns pets knows that animals can hurt themselves from time to time. 18 months ago my indoor cat broke her jaw and to this day I have no idea how it happened. Farms may have a few thousand foxes so it’s pretty much inevitable that a few may get injured. The issue is whether these animals receive veterinary care when something does happen. The video doesn’t say so it’s impossible to say for sure whether these animals are being neglected or not.
As before, injuries can be a sign of welfare issues, but sometimes these things just happen and you cannot say that a few injured foxes means the entire farm is neglectful. We need more information on why these animals are becoming injured, how frequently it is happening on the farm and what is being done to treat them and prevent the same happening to other foxes. Foxes that are sick or have open wounds and sores are not going to produce valuable pelts, so it’s in a farmers best interests to prevent these things happening wherever possible.
The footage also shows a few foxes with early stage gingival hyperplasia. Good farms do no breed foxes with conditions like this and they should always be culled for their own welfare. If a farm is producing a lot of animals with this or other conditions that compromise welfare then there is a serious issue with that farm that needs addressing. Good farms want to produce healthy animals.
In conclusion, while some of the issues highlighted here show clear animal welfare issues, others are less clear and there’s too many variables to be certain one way or the other. Saying “fur farming is not inherently unethical and many farms provide good welfare” and “some farms neglect their animals and don’t practice good welfare” are two statements that can coexist at the same time. In animal agriculture there will always be a few that neglect their animals but you cannot judge an entire industry on a few bad apples. Footage like this should also always be viewed with a critical eye as animal rights groups have been known to manipulate footage and only show certain things that fit their narrative. Does the video really show what it claims or has the footage been edited to make it look bad out of context?
