An Article Series from All-Creatures.org 

 

Animal Rights/Vegan Activists' Strategies

How We Shut Down Sweden’s Falkenberg Mink Farm

From UnoffensiveAnimal.is
August 28, 2024

The closure of the mink farm in Falkenberg was a victory and we look back on our work with pride, but yet there are billions and billions of animals around the world who need our help. We must continue to fight for each individual and if this campaign has taught us something, it is that resistance produces results. It may take time, but sooner or later, what stands in the way of the future will have to move.

Sweden and the fur

In Sweden the fur industry mainly consists of mink farms, where about 442 500 minks were raised just to be killed in 2019. In the last twenty years, the number of mink farms in Sweden has declined sharply. Currently there are about 20 mink farms left. In addition to mink farms, there are rabbit breeders who raise a small number of rabbits primarily for fur production together with meat production. Historically, there was also fox and chinchilla farms for fur production in Sweden, but fortunately the last fox farm closed in 2001 and the last chinchilla farm in 2014. At that time, the Swedish animal rights organisation Djurrättsalliansen managed to save the lives of the 243 chinchillas that were left on the farm and relocate them to loving homes. There is no ethical ban on fox and chinchilla farms but what instead caused the farms to close was regulatory changes regarding how the animals were allowed to be kept. For example, foxes must be allowed to dig and be together with other foxes on large areas, and this is simply not profitable and therefore the farms were dismantled after the new requirements were introduced.

Similar regulatory changes that would mean the end of mink farms in Sweden have been discussed for several years but have unfortunately not been introduced. Sweden has for almost thirty years had an animal welfare law which says that animals should be “maintained and cared for in a good animal environment so that they get to embrace their natural behavior”. At the same time, mink farming looks basically the same today as it did at its beginning in the 1930´s. The mink farms being or not being has become a long-standing political accompaniment, not least in recent years when it has become an issue of terrorizing of farmers. It has, as always, not been a debate about the animals but rather about the farmers, income and earnings.

Several institutions, including the Swedish Veterinary Medicine Society, the Agriculture Agency and the Animal Welfare Authority, have over the years raised their voices about the fact that the mink farms do not comply with section 4 of the animal welfare law. It is the paragraph that deals with natural behavior and good animal environment. Regarding the mink farms, development has unfortunately been slower than that of the fox and chinchilla farms. The mink farms are significantly larger in number than the fox farms were and stopping the mink farm by means of stricter rules has proved to be easier said than done. Not surprisingly, economic interests have taken precedence over ethical values.

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Please read the ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE, including:

• The mink
• Death
• The war
• Timeline
• The fight continues

 

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Posted on All-Creatures.org: August 29, 2024
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