43 MPs and Peers urge Ministers: put public health before bobble hats

Credit: Humane Society International/UK

In a remote corner of the countryside under a starry sky, a fox spins in helpless repetitions in a cage barely bigger than she is. Her overgrown claws clatter on the metal mesh floor, above a mound of faeces. Tormented by a life sentence in this wire box, she is edging closer to the day, in a few months' time, when she will be electrocuted and skinned for her fur. Her neighbour, awaiting the same fate, licks a raw stump where her tail used to be. Further down the row of dozens of cages that stretches into the darkness, we find many animals squinting through infected weeping eyes. Many just lie and stare blankly, like ghosts of the wild animals they should be.

Such suffering is hard to witness, but exposing the grim reality of life and death on fur farms is a high-profile focus of our anti-fur campaigning. It is also a primary reason that MPs and Peers have this week written to the Environment Secretary, Health, and Trade Policy Ministers urging an end to the UK’s complicity in the global fur trade.

Fur farming was rightly outlawed in the UK over 20 years ago. The UK blazed a trail with a ban that more than 20 countries have since followed. But since rightly telling our own farmers that they cannot cage and kill foxes, mink and other wild species for their fur, we have continued to import the same suffering from overseas. The fur from the fox whose hopeless gaze I met on a fur farm in Finland in October last year could easily end up as a coat trim or bobble hat shipped to, and sold in, the UK.

“By allowing tens of millions of pounds of fur to be imported to the UK each year we are engaging in a double standard. We are outsourcing suffering.” 

– letter from MPs and Peers to Environment Secretary Steve Reed

The fur of around one million sentient animals is imported into the UK every year. Dozens of investigations show without doubt that wild species exploited for the fur trade suffer both mentally and physically, but British politicians are now also calling time on the UK fur trade because of the serious public health risk it poses.

Fur trade pandemic roulette

On thousands of fur farms in countries including Finland, Poland and China, chronically stressed animals who are highly susceptible to infections are crammed together row-upon-row in very close proximity. These are ideal conditions to facilitate the rapid spread of zoonotic diseases, like COVID-19 and Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI). Many hundreds of outbreaks of COVID-19 have occurred on fur farms and, more recently, over seventy cases of HPAI have been reported on European fur farms. Reflecting on the recent discovery of  11 zoonotic viruses in animals from Chinese fur farms, including a deeply concerning bat coronavirus, eminent evolutionary biologist and virologist Prof. Edward Holmes described the fur trade as a “roll of the dice” and “a clear epidemic or pandemic risk”. 

“The public health risk posed by the fur trade commands serious and urgent attention and action by the UK Government; we must cease trading in this high-risk commodity.”

– letter from MPs and Peers to Environment Secretary Steve Reed

Fur farming also causes significant environmental damage. Despite the industry’s false claims that fur is a sustainable material, the carbon footprint of animal fur has been shown to be much higher than other textiles, and a cocktail of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals is used to dye the fur and stop the skin from decomposing.

Overwhelming support for a ban

Given the horrifying cruelty built into fur production, and the clear risks to public health and the environment, it is unsurprising that 77% of the British public support a ban on importing fur to the UK. The Fur Free Britain petition has over 1.2 million signatures and the campaign has also attracted significant Parliamentary, veterinary and celebrity support. Some 200 current cross-party MPs and Peers have already pledged their support for a ban, and the campaign is supported by some of the nation’s most prominent public figures including Dame Judi Dench, Gary Lineker, Sir Brian May and Dame Jane Goodall.

Consumer opposition to fur cruelty has led the vast majority of fashion brands to stop using real fur. The Fur Free Retailer programme has over 1,500 brands signed up, and the majority of luxury designers including Prada, Gucci, Burberry, Chanel and Versace no longer sell fur. Even Canada Goose, once well-known for its coyote fur trimmed coat hoods, has stepped away from using real fur. Despite this encouraging progress, the UK continues to act as a trading hub for fur skins and garments, demonstrating that ending Britain’s involvement in this brutal and dangerous industry requires a change in the law. 

In 2021 Defra published a Call for Evidence on the fur trade that received 30,000 responses, 96% of which agreed it was wrong to kill animals for the sake of their fur. The previous government failed to publish the full results or take any legislative action. Since taking office, the current Government has received 14 written questions urging publication of the CFE and action on fur but has yet to release the results.  

Virologists’ warnings must be a major wake-up call to politicians to stop us sleep-walking into the next pandemic; the UK must again blaze a trail by becoming the first country to ban the import and sale of animal fur. Ruth Jones MP’s Fur (Import and Sale) Bill is a clear opportunity for the Government to meet the expectations of the public and many politicians by ending Britain’s participation in this cruel, dangerous and unnecessary trade.

“A UK ban on fur imports and sales would send an extremely important global message to those nations still engaged in cruel and dangerous fur farming that protecting public health and animal welfare are more important than fur fashion.”

– letter from MPs and Peers to Environment Secretary Steve Reed

Humane Society International UK

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