We already know that fur farming is grotesque and brutal, often involving ripping the hides and hairs off of screaming caged animals who are given no other life. Now we also know that fur farming - more specifically, farming mink - has been a
massive contributor to the spread of COVID-19 and its multiple variants.
It turns out that humans aren't the only animals who can catch the deadly coronavirus. Many other species, including deer and mink, can also contract the disease and spread it amongst themselves. However, unlike other animal species,
mink can also easily spread COVID... back to humans. But by the time they do, the virus has often mutated considerably in their bodies.
And mink-involved COVID outbreaks have already occurred in the U.S. multiple times.Clearly, mink fur farming isn't just bad for the animals. It's bad for people, too! Sign the petition to ban all fur farming in the U.S.!There are
more than 200 mink farms operating in the U.S., locking up these helpless furry animals and harvesting them for their pelts. Even though researchers have discovered, time and again, that mink are uniquely vulnerable to COVID infections, the U.S. government has done very little to monitor outbreaks or general animal health at these farms. So far, we do know that mink infections have exploded at approximately 18 such farms, but that number could be far higher.
Officials discovered one such outbreak just this year, at a farm in Michigan in February 2022.In response to these types of outbreaks earlier in the pandemic, the Netherlands and Denmark chose to shut down mink farms in their countries. But the U.S. government has merely asked mink farmers to
please comply with voluntary guidelines, such as considering mask-wearing.
It even allowed many mink farmers with infected animals to "opt-out" of health investigations! Out of 18 American mink farms, investigators with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were only able to successfully examine animals at
8 sites, total.
Mink farmers have been quick to protect the secrecy at their farms, refusing efforts to create a more standardized system of federal testing and reporting.
What happens at their farms affects all of us. But these fur-harvesting profit-seekers don't seem to care.
It's long past time for fur farming to end anyway.
Mink fur farmers exploit and harm animals. They rebuff federal health investigations. And they allow COVID outbreaks to run rampant, creating deadly new variants that come back to infect the rest of us. Clearly the mink farming industry cannot be trusted. Sign the petition to demand the U.S. Congress shut down all fur farming in the country, now!