To be so upset about mink fur farming and I can’t believe it’s legal.

[quest1on]

I think this is one of the most disgustingly inhumane industries I could imagine. What can I do? I’ve read today that France at least has banned mink-farming from now on, and Holland has also closed all farms permanently off the back of this Covid Outbreak, But Denmark?? Wtf are you doing? I thought you were a civilised society! Any country which allows this should be ashamed. I guess the one positive of Covid is that it’s shining a light on these appalling industries. People who work in this trade deserve a lot worse than bankruptcy and Covid. I don’t know how they can live with themselves.

I remember, oh decades ago now, how British pig farmers were all but wiped out because we had banned the cruel sow crates, and insisted on straw bedding for pregnant sows, while across the channel it was business as usual. Our farmers couldn't compete on price. IF you must buy pork products please buy British.
A previous poster mentioned the live export of farm animals. It's looking hopeful that we may see this awful trade from UK to Europe end, once we leave the EU for good.
The shocking thing about Covid and mink is that the virus has mutated significantly in these animals, and if not this mutation then maybe the next could nullify the progress that's been achieved in vaccine research. Covid (albeit in slightly earlier forms) has been killing mink on fur farms in other countries, including the US. We know that this particular virus is flourishing in humans, and we now know it's found an alternative breeding platform in farmed mink, and happily jumps between the two species. It seems the height of stupidity to allow the farming of mink to continue for that reason alone, nevermind all the other issues. Some people on this thread are saying it's not nice to strip people of their livelihood (by closing fur farms) yet seem oblivious to the huge risk to human lives and everybody else's livelihoods posed by keeping them open. I think they're looking down the wrong end of the telescope.

We saw a mink in our garden recently.
I think the practice of farming them for fur is barbaric due to the methods used. We eat some meat (poultry) but we try to limit it so that it's a treat, and free range. This mass production of any animals makes me feel uneasy.