AnimaNaturalis documented five mink farms located in Galicia and Castilla y León in the winters of 2020 and 2021. The images show animals with stereotypes, lack of hygiene, environmental contamination and a slaughter recorded with a hidden camera.
Within the framework of the European Citizens' Initiative Fur Free Europe for the definitive closure of fur farms in the EU, AnimaNaturalis launches this video report to remind us that these places continue to exist closer than Spanish society thinks.
A cruel industry
Every year some 750,000 animals are raised in Spain on 32 fur farms. According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, 26 of the active farms were American mink in 2021, while the rest mainly produce rabbits and chinchillas.
The images recorded by AnimaNaturalis show the anxiety suffered by minks due to permanent confinement. They are completely deprived of the possibility of developing their natural behaviors, such as swimming, digging or hunting.
Minks are a semi-aquatic species with an exploratory nature and skilled climbers, but on farms they spend their entire lives held against their will in rigid metal cages. This lack of stimuli causes stereotyped movements -one of the most widely used indicators of lack of animal welfare-, they suffer injuries, cannibalism and can even mutilate themselves.
In one of the farms visited, we documented with a hidden camera the handling of the minks by the operators and their slaughter with a gas chamber. This method of slaughter is common, along with electrocution and neck breaking, which are chosen to avoid damaging the skins. The rest of their bodies end up piled up in containers.
The images presented were obtained in February 2021, when the detection of a mink positive for Covid-19 at the Navatalgordo farm (Ávila), ended with the execution of 1,010 individuals. In the same months, 17 more outbreaks were detected in Spain, of which 15 occurred in Galicia, one in Aragon, and another in the Valencian Community, with fatal consequences for the animals.
The video shows how the two technicians hit the cages to force out the resisting mink. In an orderly manner, they walk the aisles until they have introduced each animal into the container where they will be gassed. To make just one fur coat, between 50 and 60 mink are killed at approximately 8 months of age.
Due to the inherent cruelty of its processes, which have been revealed in numerous investigations of animal organizations in the last decade, it is increasingly difficult to defend the possibility of applying realistic animal welfare standards during breeding, production and slaughter in the sector. furrier.
AnimaNaturalis emphasize that welfare conditions that do not exist cannot be improved and we defend that the only acceptable solution for mink and other species is the definitive closure of all farms.
Unsafe and unsustainable
During the report, AnimaNaturalis discovered slurry spills and contaminated streams next to three of the farms. One of them, on which there are previous complaints for numerous irregularities, had stagnant wastewater in its vicinity.
In addition to dealing with an environmental threat, complaints from affected neighbors have been accumulating for years, and they do not receive any solution to the populations of flies, the bad smell, the escape of minks and the mistreatment of animals that occur together with their houses.
Likewise, the American mink is a species introduced for its use in habitats that do not correspond to it. There have been several cases of escapes of these animals from farms, which can cause havoc in the native fauna and flora and put public health at risk.
At the height of the pandemic, minks were already the subject of controversy. International media echoed the massive slaughter on farms for fear of the risk of contagion from Covid-19 and 20 million mink were killed in Europe after demonstrating that they could transmit the disease to humans.
The cases were repeated in the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, France, Canada, Poland and other states, and led to the closure of 73% of the 2,700 European farms. While some countries accelerated the procedures to close the industry, Spain is still at the tail. Despite the fact that Royal Decree 1628/2011 prohibits the creation of new mink farms since 2016, extensions have continued to be granted after the coronavirus crisis that have allowed the number of breeding females to double in the case of a Galician farm.
In 13 of the 27 EU states, fur farms are already prohibited, so 2023 may be a crucial year to make history and definitively end them throughout Europe, taking into account that the European Citizens' Initiative Fur Free Europe that ends next May already exceeds 1.2 million signatures.
From AnimaNaturalis we insist on the importance of continuing to sign until the necessary threshold is reached in Spain, and we will continue to demand the immediate cessation of this cruel, outdated and unnecessary industry through a wide dissemination campaign and protest actions.
