British Columbia government accepts recommendation of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs VICTORIA, B.C.––British Columbia agriculture minister Lana Popham on November 5, 2021 made British Columbia the first jurisdiction in North America to announce a permanent ban on mink farming. In so doing, Popham responded, six months later, to an April 6, 2021 urgent […]
COVID-19 skins fur trade: Ireland bans fur farming; Finland vaccinates mink
Ireland becomes 15th European Union nation to ban or phase out the mink industry DUBLIN, HELSINKI––Responding to continuing discoveries of the COVID-19 coronavirus in factory-farmed mink, the government of the Republic of Ireland has elected to ban fur faming. The Finnish Food Authority, by contrast, is experimentally vaccinating farmed mink in hopes fur demand […]
Chinchilla breeder fined $18,000 & loses USDA license to supply laboratories
A small animal used in labs, but a huge step for Animal Welfare Act enforcement WASHINGTON D.C.; ROCHESTER, Minnesota––Chinchillas are very small and soft, so small that you could hold one in the palm of your hand, so soft that they have been exploited for their fur for centuries, even though from 100 to 200 […]
Is mink farming “too dirty to die”? Or is pending bill the coup-de-grace?
Some in the U.S. mink industry see COVID-19 as a growth opportunity WASHINGTON D.C.––Will the COVID-19 delta variant finally kill mink farming in the U.S., after COVID-19 in all forms has killed more than 633,000 Americans? Or will HR 4310, dubbed the MINKS Act as acronym for “Minks in Narrowly Kept Spaces Are Superspreaders Act,” […]
Israel “fur ban” is among last gasps of “lame duck” Netanyahu regime
Ban to take effect––if it ever does––six months after Netanyahu government leaves office JERUSALEM, Israel––Israeli environmental protection minister Gila Gamliel, appointed on May 17, 2020 by “lame duck” prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on June 9, 2021 capped her year in office by signing a regulatory amendment that bans the sale of fur by the […]
Aloha Rodeo: animal advocates, Disney, & Cheyenne showdown
Will forthcoming film “glorify steer roping” & help to revive rodeo, or help to finish it? UPDATE: The online entertainment periodical Deadline on May 18, 2021 announced that it had “learned that Disney is no longer moving forward with the [Aloha Rodeo] project.” CHEYENNE, Wyoming––Walt Disney Inc., Cheyenne Frontier Days, and a coalition of animal […]
Diseased pigs & mink gave the world COVID-19, scientists suspect
Forthcoming World Health Organization report is expected to confirm Chinese investigators’ suspicions BEIJING, BOSTON, WUHAN––Will a World Health Organization report expected to be released within days indict the Chinese mink industry for infecting the world with COVID-19? Beijing University researchers have already suspected for more than a year that mink farming was likely […]
End to Irish & Greek mink farming expected after Danish & Dutch culls
Irish chief medical officer calls for mink cull as “a matter of urgency” LIMERICK, COPENHAGEN––Not even Guinness bottle caps are flipping, let alone champagne corks popping, in celebration of the anticipated imminent end of mink breeding in Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, France, and perhaps even Greece and Spain. Mink massacres underway in […]
Mink ranching survives in Denmark despite risky COVID-19 mutation
Danish mink industry was to be liquidated from fear that COVID-19 mutation could neutralize vaccines in development COPENHAGEN, Denmark––The Danish mink industry, on the verge of liquidation as of November 4, 2020 to control a COVID-19 coronavirus mutation, appears to have politically mobilized to win a reprieve––for the mink ranchers, however, not the mink […]
Mink the missing link? COVID-19 deaths & new data suggest yes.
Dutch findings come as COVID-19 hits mink farms & humans in Wisconsin & Utah GREEN BAY, Wisconsin; SALT LAKE CITY, Utah––Which came first, the COVID-19 coronavirus infecting humans, or infecting mink? No one right now knows for sure whether mink might have been the incubator species through which COVID-19 passed from horseshoe bats in […]