A key to successful advocacy work, whatever the cause, is the ability to understand the views, values, and priorities of “the other side” – those who wish to impede whatever you want to achieve. I value compassion and conservation. I oppose cruelty and environmental degradation. These are values that have long motivated me to oppose the fur industry. They are part of a bias, and I will admit that up front, freely.
I will not pretend to understand fully why people still buy fur apparel or want to enable the process that makes it available. If they do not care about causing suffering and death to the animals (or find the degree of either to be acceptable, even necessary), that is as it is. If they do not care about conservation or the environment, so be it. But, since most people do hold these values, the fur industry very naturally seeks to find common ground in concerns about employment and the economy or craftsmanship. And, it will seek to deny the concerns by, for example, arguing that trapping supports conservation and that fur producing animals are treated humanely if captive-bred (the majority) or that animals die instantly if trapped.
Flashback to 2003 when a strange epidemic called SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) hit the Toronto area, where I live, harder than anywhere else outside of Asia where it originated. I remember the fears; masks, disposable gloves and gowns, disinfectants, questionnaires all became familiar. The experts decided the coronavirus strain causing SARS originated in wildlife, probably civets, kept in close confinement conditions in street markets in China. There were lessons to be learned.
But, those lessons were not learned. As horrible as SARS was, with 44 deaths in Toronto, it pales compared to the current version, SARS-CoV-2, commonly known as COVID-19. Again, animals kept in overcrowded conditions are thought to be the origin.
The pandemic has come at a massive cost to lives, health, and the economy. COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease, going from animal to human, or vice versa. Among animals most susceptible as carriers are Mustelids, the family that includes ferrets, skunks, weasels, otters, and mink.
When COVID-19 appeared in mink in fur farms in Europe, I was not surprised. Large numbers of animals in close confinement are disease “super spreader events” waiting to happen. When I learned that COVID-19 appeared in mink on fur farms in North America, I was, again, not surprised. But, what I feared would happen would be that this virulent disease would enter wild populations. By the end of last year COVID-19 had wiped out nearly half of the breeding populations of captive mink in Utah, and, worse news, the disease been found in a couple of wild mink, too.
While one hopes that nothing more can go wrong with this pandemic, thanks to the fur industry there are “what if” scenarios that are terrifying to consider. What if – as experts say can happen – as the virus moves from species to species it mutates in a way that renders current vaccines less effective or ineffective? What if other Mustelids, or even raccoons, rabbits – whomever – prove to be both effective transmitters and also vulnerable? Dogs and cats?
And, we take this risk for what? For fashion?
Now, Russian and American researchers are trying to create a vaccine for mink. But, even if they succeed, we continue to ignore root cause – and even worse – we talk about returning to “normal” after the virus is under control. “Normal” is what produced this pandemic in the first place. We did not learn from SARS and we seem destined not to learn from this pandemic, too. As the human population grows, we can keep an increasingly absurd number of animals in close confinement and risk a disastrous end to our own kind. We can continue as we have in the past or we can learn how to prevent such catastrophic events from happening again. We have a choice. The mink do not.
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Barry
