Photos: Hazmat-Clad PETA Supporters Demand Danish Fur Ban
Photos: Hazmat-Clad PETA Supporters Demand Danish Fur Ban
Protesters Call For End to Cruel, Dangerous Trade Amid Coronavirus Mutation Fears
London – Wearing bright-yellow hazmat suits and gas masks, PETA members took a “biohazard” bin full of mink furs – donated by fur-wearers who had a change of heart – to the Danish Embassy today to call for a complete and immediate ban on fur production in Denmark.
The protest follows the Danish government’s proposal to kill all minks in the country’s fur industry – up to 17 million animals – after a potentially vaccine-resistant, mutated strain of the novel coronavirus spread from minks to fur farm workers and several other humans . Denmark is the largest mink-fur producer in the world. Around 1,500 facilities in the country tear off the skins of approximately 16 million minks per year.
“Filthy fur factories packed with sick, stressed animals are hotspots for COVID-19, and the coronavirus can mutate in these conditions, rendering vaccines unlikely to be effective,” says PETA Senior Campaigns Manager Kate Werner. “PETA is asking the Danish prime minister to save the lives of humans and other animals by shutting these dangerous places down.”
The novel coronavirus is believed to have originated in a live-animal market. Such markets represent a similar public health risk to that posed by fur factories, where animals are confined right next to each other in wire cages and disease can easily spread through inhalation or transmission via urine, excrement, pus, and blood.
Investigations into Danish mink farms found animals with untreated bite wounds, minks missing legs that had been bitten off during fights, and animals living next to the rotting corpses of their cagemates. Unable to engage in natural behaviour, the sensitive animals often go mad from the confinement, and some even mutilate themselves, chewing on their own legs or tails as a result of the constant psychological and physical torment.
High-resolution photos from the action are available here. PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Contact:
Sascha Camilli +44 (0) 20 7923 6244; [email protected]
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