You may have read that Swiss lawmakers have made the importation and sale of “cruelly produced fur” unlawful from groups like Humane World for Animals.
Here at Friends of Animals, we don’t think regulating atrocities is cause for celebration.
Last year, the Swiss Federal Council banned all imports of fur and fur products produced using “methods that involve cruelty to animals” effective July 1, 2029. Now, the country has banned the sale of fur products produced the same way within its border, effective July 1, 2030.
But this is not an example for other countries to follow. Because fur will still be permitted for commercial import and sale if its production meets the requirements of a certification program being developed by Switzerland’s Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office.
A feel-good certification label on a fur coat cannot hide the violence behind every piece of fur. The truth is the fur trade destroys living, feeling animals.
Banning the importation and sale of ALL fur is the only meaningful way to protect animals, not still allowing some of the horrific ways to take animals’ lives for fur.
When caught in leg hold traps, wolves, beavers, coyotes, raccoons and others will fight mightily to free themselves. When animals caught in snares try to escape, the wire cuts more deeply in limbs, necks or bodies. In some cases animals will escape by chewing off one of their feet.
Then there are the fur products made from captive animals raised on ranches or in factories and warehoused in cages, every natural instinct thwarted. Minks suffer neck breaking or are stuffed in boxes pumped full of unfiltered engine exhaust, then skinned. Lynxes, coyotes, foxes and chinchillas are electrocuted.
It’s ALL cruel and unjust, whether Switzerland’s Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office thinks so or not.
Nicole Rivard is the Editor-in-Chief and Media/Government Relations Manager for Friends of Animals