Fur-Farm Cruelty: Minks and Foxes Gassed en Masse
A two-month PETA U.S. eyewitness exposé of Dillenburg Fur Farm, LLC, a massive fur farm in Wisconsin—the nation’s top mink-producing state—revealed that thousands of minks and scores of foxes were kept in rows of filthy, wire-floored cages until they were slaughtered—all so that their fur could be turned into coats and collars. Many animals were caged above piles of their own waste a foot tall.
The cages were sprayed with a high-pressure washer while the minks were inside because, as the owner’s wife said, “If those mink are stained and dirty, I’m losing 10, 20 dollars a mink on that.” The loud pressure-washer engine caused them to circle, jump, and pace wildly.
This mink, named Miss Mary by the eyewitness, chewed through a cage until her face was bloody. The eyewitness did not see her receive any veterinary care, which isn’t uncommon in the fur industry.
Workers grabbed terrified, screaming minks by their sensitive tails, crammed them into this metal drum, and pumped it full of dirty gas from a running engine, crudely suffocating them en masse. The farmer broke the neck of one mink who had survived the gassing. Another mink survived for 20 minutes before finally dying.
This fox, named D2 by the eyewitness, had visibly swollen gums, but the eyewitness never saw him receive any veterinary care. The farmer said that he had refused to breed and bragged in graphic detail that he’d “jacked” him. But D2, too, was killed in a makeshift gas chamber along with some of the other foxes.
