Fur Farming and Public Health

The impact of fur farming on public health is considerable, affecting the environment, the surrounding animals and humans, as well as the health and well-being of those working in the industry. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a case study of how diseases can spread rapidly through fur farms. The evidence is that keeping animals in fur factory farm conditions is not only inhumane for the animals, but also has negative implications for human health as well.

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Notes

David Suzuki Foundation, The Impacts of the Mink Industry on Freshwater Lakes in Nova Scotia: An Overview of Concerns (technical brief), April 25, 2011, 1.

United States Environmental Protection Agency, Preventing Eutrophication: Scientific Support for Dual Nutrient Criteria, February 2015, www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/documents/nandpfactsheet.pdf.

Marijn Bijleveld, Marisa Korteland, and Maartje Sevenster, The Environmental Impact of Mink Fur Production (CE Delft, January 2011), 61, http://www.cedelft.eu/publicatie/the_environmental_impact_of_mink_fur_production/1131.

Humane Society of the United States, “Toxic Fur: The Impacts of Fur Production on the Environment and Risks to Human Health,” January 29, 2009, http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/fur/toxic-fur-january-22-2009.pdf.

John Maurice, “Tannery Pollution Threatens Health of Half-Million Bangladesh Residents,” Bulletin of the World Health Organization, January 2001, http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0042-96862001000100018.

Benjamin Baran, Steven Rogelberg and Thomas Clausen, “Routinized Killing of Animals: Going Beyond Dirty Work and Prestige to Understand the Well-being of Slaughterhouse Workers,” Organization 23 no. 3 (2016): 351–369.

Jennifer Dillard, A Slaughterhouse Nightmare: Psychological Harm Suffered by Slaughterhouse Employees and the Possibility of Redress through Legal Reform (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 1016401). Rochester: Social Science Research Network, 2007, https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1016401.

Abdurrahim Emham, Ahmet Şener Yildiz, Yasin Bez and Said Kingir, Psychological Symptom Profile of Butchers Working in Slaughterhouse and Retail Meat Packing Business: A Comparative Study, 2012, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269813255_Psychological_Symptom_Profile_of_Butchers_Working_in_Slaughterhouse_and_Retail_Meat_Packing_Business_A_Comparative_Study.

Amy J. Fitzgerald, Linda Kalof, and Thomas Dietz, “Slaughterhouses and Increased Crime Rates An Empirical Analysis of the Spillover From “The Jungle” Into the Surrounding Community,” Organization & Environment 22 no.2 (2009): 158–184.

Aysha Akhar, Animals and Public Health: Why Treating Animals Better is Critical to Human Welfare (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 2.

Adrienne Murray, “Coronavirus: Denmark Shaken by Cull of Millions of Mink,” BBC News, November 11, 2020, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54890229.

Dina Fine Maron, “What the Mink COVID-19 Outbreaks Taught us about Pandemics,” National Geographic, February 24, 2021, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/what-the-mink-coronavirus-pandemic-has-taught-us.

Tom Levitt and Sophie Kevany, “Mink Farms a Continuing Covid Risk to Humans and Wildlife, Warn EU Experts,” The Guardian, February 18, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/18/mink-farms-a-continuing-covid-risk-to-humans-and-wildlife-warn-eu-experts.

Anne Sofie Hammer, Michelle Lauge Quaade, Thomas Bruun Rasmussen, Jannik Fonager, Morten Rasmussen, and Karin Mundbjerg, “SARS-CoV-2 Transmission Between Mink (Neovison vison) and Humans, Denmark,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 27, no. 2 (2021): 547–551.

The Economist, “Not Fur Sale: COVID-19 Brings Dutch Mink Farming to an End,” The Economist, September 5, 2020, https://www.economist.com/europe/2020/09/05/covid-19-ends-dutch-mink-farming.

FIFUR, “Corona Vaccinations on Mink Started on the First Farms in Finland and the EU,” Finnish Fur Breeders’ Association, December 22, 2021, https://fifur.fi/en/ajankohtaista/artikkeli/corona-vaccinations-mink-started-first-farms-finland-and-eu.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

1. Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK Andrew Linzey
2. Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, Oxford, UK Clair Linzey

1. Andrew Linzey