Consequences

Healthy, unharmed animals give good fur quality and make good financial sense

The production of fur is largely dependent on good quality. Good fur quality makes good financial sense, while poor fur quality has a major financial impact. With an increasing global market, it is very important to maintain quality so that Swedish fur remains competitive. Having healthy, unharmed animals up to the time of killing is also a crucial importance so that a competitive product can be supplied.

Inspection of the animals prior to killing at the time of pelting is important in order to detect sick or injured animals, as these animals may need to be handled separately.

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Inspection of animal health. A pen is used to tempt the mink forwards. Photograph: SLU.

Consumer interest in animal welfare

Sveriges pälsdjursuppfödares riksförbund, the Swedish Fur Breeders Association, has focused extensively on animal welfare over the past few years. Among other things, a care programme has been devised and adopted. The European Fur Breeders’ Association has also focused extensively on animal welfare by creating WelFur, which is similar to the European Commission’s Welfare Quality initiative.

Attitude surveys carried out relating to animal foods show that the issue of animal welfare is one of by far the most important issues for consumers. Problems such as environmental impact and food safety are frequently sidelined. A European survey carried out in 2007 (European Commission, 2007) shows that this is not just a Swedish phenomenon. In this survey, citizens from 25 European countries were of the opinion that animal protection was important. Animal protection received an average rating of 7.8 on a scale of 1 (not important) to 10 (very important), with a slightly higher ranking in Sweden (9.0)).

However, it appears that consumers’ opinions do not always influence their choice of foods. Only a small proportion of consumers allow their views on animal protection to influence the type of food they buy. The majority of consumers choose meat according to the contents of their purses, but an increasing number of Europeans are prioritising animal welfare. It is not known whether fir consumers have the same attitudes, but this is a likely assumption.

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Mink with bitten fur.

Mink and chinchillas may start to bite off their own fur if they are in poor mental health. However, the severe form of fur biting that can be seen in the picture of the mink is very uncommon on Swedish mink farms. It is not difficult to understand that fur biting is bad both for animal welfare and from a financial perspective. Photograph: SLU.

From having focused on gauging animal welfare in the form of their housing environment and care and the absence of diseases, parameters have now also been devised for measuring animal behaviour. Studying the behaviour of an animal can provide a perception of the condition of the animal in purely mental terms.

The Swedish Board of Agriculture’s regulations and guidelines (SJVFS 2012:14) on the breeding and keeping of fur-bearing animals; ref. no. L103, includes paragraphs relating to the mental health of animals.

Chap. 1(14), L103
… Every facility must be visited at least once a year by an ethologist who is familiar with the species.

Chap. 1(15), L103
If animals show signs of significant levels of stereotypical or other abnormal behaviour such as fur biting, apathy or abnormal aggression, the animal keeper must take steps without delay to establish and rectify the cause.

If these measures fail to resolve the problems, the animal keeper must work together with a vet and an ethologist who is familiar with the species to devise an action plan as soon as possible. This plan must be implemented as soon as possible or, following assessment by the inspection authority, within 12 months in all events.

If the measures undertaken according to the plan failed to resolve the problems with stereotypical or other abnormal behaviour, the animal-keeping facility must be wound down and may only be resumed when appropriate measures have been undertaken to prevent the problem occurring again.

General guidelines on Chap. 1(15)
In the action plan, the degree of fundamental changes must be related to the extent of the stereotypical or other abnormal behaviour occurring at the facility in question. The action plan should also include the animals which are not demonstrating stereotypical or other abnormal behaviour but which are kept under the same conditions as these animals.

The section entitled Quality describes this topic in greater detail, as well as providing information on how welfare indicators can be used to gauge welfare.