New bill before Congress to euthanize zombie mink farming industry

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Banning mink farms is crucial for public health,”  says Representative Nancy Mace

WASHINGTON D.C.––Mink farming,  a zombie industry in the U.S. for more than three decades,  may at last be put out of its misery by a federal bill called “Minks in Narrowly Kept Spaces Are Superspreaders,”  introduced on March 13,  2023 by Congressional Representatives Nancy Mace,  a Republican from South Carolina,  and Rosa DeLauro,  a Democrat from Connecticut.

“Banning mink farms is crucial for public health!” said Mace.  “These farms are hotspots for transmitting and amplifying influenza strains like the bird flu,”  specifically the high pathogenic H5N1 variant,   sometimes fatal to humans,  and also COVID 19,  which has now killed more than 1.2 million Americans,  all but finishing off fur farming in Europe.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Also a move to ban mink farming in Illinois

The Mace/DeLauro bill follows by about five weeks the introduction of the Mink Facility Disease Prevention Act [S.B. 3262] in the Illinois State Senate,  sponsored by state senate assistant majority leader Linda Holmes,  a Democrat,  and immediately endorsed by Born Free USA.

While the Mace/DeLauro bill would shut down mink farming nationwide,  the Holmes bill would ban mink fur farming within the state of Illinois.

(Beth Clifton collage)

2023 federal bill stalled in committee

Recognizing that mink are easily infected by respiratory diseases such as COVID-19 and H5N1 avian influenza,  U.S. Representative Adriano Espaillat,  a Democrat from New York,  on June 6, 2023 introduced HB 3783,  an earlier federal bill that remains technically still alive,  seeking to phase out U.S. mink farms within one year of passage.

The Espaillat bill,  entitled the Mink: Vectors for Infection Risk in the United States Act (Mink VIRUS Act),  also would establish a grant program to reimburse mink farmers for the full value of their operations.

The Espaillat bill attracted four co-sponsors:  Democrat Veronica Escobar of Texas plus Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania,  Anthony D’Esposito of New York state,  and Nicole Malliotakis,  also of New York state.

Initially referred to the House Committees on Agriculture and Budget,  the Espaillat bill was sent to the House Subcommittee on Livestock,  Dairy,  & Poultry on July 10,  2023,  and has not advanced since then.

(Beth Clifton collage)

New bill has more co-sponsors

Pushed by Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy,  “Minks in Narrowly Kept Spaces Are Superspreaders” debuts with six cosponsors,  including Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Lance Gooden of Texas,  along with Democrats Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey,  Veronica Escobar of Texas,  Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania,  and Paul Tonko of New York state.

Fitzpatrick and Escobar have supported both bills to ban mink farming that are before the current 118th Congress.

“In the 117th Congress [2021-22],  the House of Representatives passed a very similar bill led by Representatives DeLauro and Mace as an amendment to the COMPETES Act,”  a fiscal stimulus bill,  “but the measure was dropped from the final measure of the broader legislative package,”  recalled Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle.

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Abusive & inhumane”

“Mink farms no longer produce raw garments for American consumers,”  Pacelle continued,  “exporting all pelts to shrinking foreign markets,  mainly in China,  where fur coats and other garments are manufactured,  then re-exported back to dwindling retail markets the U.S. as well as abroad.

“This negligible foreign commerce is no longer worth the domestic risks,”  Pacelle said,  “given that factory-farmed mink are potential super-spreaders of avian influenza,  COVID-19, and other dangerous zoonotic diseases.”

Agreed Mace,  “The MINKS Are Superspreaders Act represents a crucial, bipartisan step towards preventing another disease outbreak, like COVID.  In addition,  we have the chance to end the abusive and inhumane mink farming practice.”

Mink.  (Beth Clifton collage)

Mink farming struggled for first 90 years

Mink farming began in the U.S. circa 160 years ago to produce collars for winter uniforms during the U.S. Civil War.

Would-be fur farmers soon discovered,  though,  that mink––never fully domesticated––fare poorly in close confinement,  and having fast metabolisms,  require a huge food supply relative to output that was not readily available in most places cold enough to stimulate thick fur growth.

Until the advent of factory farming and centralized slaughterhouses in the 1920s,  mink farming succeeded only in proximity to cheap and abundant supplies of fish,  notably in Maine,  New Brunswick,  Wisconsin,  and Alaska.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Growth following advent of factory poultry farming

When fish runs ran short,  mink farming collapsed.  Mink farming did not actually become consistently profitable until after World War II,  when offal chiefly from poultry slaughterhouses fed 13 years of explosive growth.

Production of about 600,000 mink pelts per year as of 1953 exploded to production of 6.2 million mink pelts in 1966,  tailed off to about four million by 1974,  rebounded in the 1970s and 1980s,  and then declined to about 2.5 million by 2000,  pressured by foreign competition and responding to the collapse of U.S. retail fur sales from about $1.85 billion per year in 1988 to $950 million five years later.

In inflation-adjusted dollars,  the U.S. retail fur trade has never recovered.  Exports,  however,  brought mink production volume back up to 3.7 million by 2014,  preceding a decade-long collapse.

“In 2023,  mink production was expected to sink below 1 million animals for the first time in decades,”  actually about 65 years,  “with only 50 farms operating in the United States generating gross revenues of just $39 million,  with costs of production and distribution exceeding that amount,”  the Center for a Humane Economy projects.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Widespread bans in Europe

“The first countries to end fur farming were the United Kingdom in 2003,  and Austria in 2005,”  according to the Fur Free Alliance.  “The Netherlands,  once the European Union’s second-largest mink producer,  moved up its timeline for shutting down the industry from 2024 to 2021, following COVID-19 outbreaks on Dutch fur mink farms.

“In 2018,  Norway,  once the world’s largest producer of fox fur,  decided to end fur farming following shocking evidence of welfare violations on fox and mink fur farms.

“In September 2023,”  the Fur Free Alliance web site continues,  “Lithuania became the most recent country to prohibit fur farming with a phase-out period until 2027.

“One year earlier,  Latvia voted for a similar ban scheduled to go into effect in 2028,  and Malta introduced a new law amendment to outlaw fur farming with immediate effect.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Israel banned fur sales

“Earlier in 2022,”  the Fur Free Alliance adds,  “Ireland banned fur farming and shut down its three remaining mink fur farms.

“Moves to end fur farming are currently underway in Bulgaria, Poland,  Romania and Sweden,”  the Fur Free Alliance believes.

Striking at the retail end of the fur trade rather than the supply side,  Israel in 2021 became the first nation to ban fur sales.

Beth & Merritt Clifton.

While Israel remains the only nation to prohibit fur sales,  many U.S. cities have done so,  including Los Angeles,  San Francisco,  Berkeley,  and West Hollywood in California,  and others in Florida,  Massachusetts,  and Michigan.

Please donate to help support our work: 

www.animals24-7.org/donate/