Humanely Obtained Furs
[The writer of this article is the Editor of the Britieh Fur Trade, which is the chief organ of the Fur Trade in this country. His suggestions are of particular interest now, when the fur sales are beginning.—En. Spectator.] AS a journalist intimately in touch with the fur trade of Great Britain my interest was touched by the Spectator's recent leadership of a Press campaign to ensure the humane killing of fur animals ; and, at the same time, my conception of the futility of many of the enthusiasts' letters and plans has prompted me to suggest what appears to me the sole practical method of attacking the probleM.
I do not propose to discuss the many assertions of the existence of cruelty in fur animal trapping, as they are really beside the mark ; although I should not be human if I did not ache to point out how few of these are based on anything but information at second or third' hand, on
statements scarcely so substantiated by personal obser- vation of recent- practice (the world becomes yearly more humane, even in the wilds, and what held good two generations ago does not necessarily do so to-day) as to be acceptable as evidence in Law Court procedure.
But I will concede to the humanitarians that cruelty may be as inherent in the trapping of fur animals as it 13 in Nature's ways of ending their lives, if they will concede —to save time--what is unquestionably a fact—that however desirable, no method is feasible by which such cruelty can be preVented, the areas over which the animals are trapped being too vast to make supervision possible.
What then is left ? FrtMkly, as the world lives to-day the only way to prevent a body of men pursuing some undesired' practice is to make it cease to pay them. We aim to do so by penalizing laws if we are in the majority of the nation ; but when, as in this case, the advocates of an altered course are in a tiny minority, other methods must be found or the practice be accepted as unalterable.
Now, in addition to the body of humane opinion re- sponsible for this movement, there is in this country an immense public possessed of, shall we say, an uncom- fortable but rather tractable conscience. As individuals, this class would prefer to buy guaranteed " uneruelly " obtained furs ; but, lacking the supply of such furs and realizing that subscribing to the principle at present would mean going without furs, scruples are " blanketted " under refusal to face the issue.
If means could be found by which supplies could be assured to retailers in sufficient quantity to make it a " business proposition," propaganda would soon give birth to a public demanding furs with a humanely-killed guarantee. That is the direction in which constructive work can take place. In this country fur farming has concentrated on rearing silver foxes, muskrats and mink —only the former being in appreciable numbers. The value of this to the humanely killed fur animal advocates lies in the fact that, almost without exception (without any, in this country, as far as the writer's knowledge goes) farmed fur animals are killed instantaneously either by chloroforming them in a lethal chamber or by hypodermic injection.
The importance of fur farming arises not only from its promise of a new and paying land industry for this country, but also from the accepted fact that the supply of wild fur-bearers is gradually—in some cases rapidly— lessening. Therefore, this new industry has already attracted the active interest of fur traders and furriers, Which means that it has not to live down any trade ptejudice or vested interests in order to find acceptance for its output.
Fur farming owes its start to a young farmer named Dalton (now Sir Charles Dalton) who, between 1879 and 1889, .experimented to see whether the black fox could not be raised in captivity, and during that period suc- ceeded in rearing the first penned fox family. To-day, the fox farms in Canada number 3,067, while the total of silver fox cubs born in these establishments was 38,068-in 1926 and 45,750 in 1927. These farms sold 17,555 silver foxes in 1926 for pelts and 10,514 for breeding purposes, while the following year these figures had increased respectively to 20,890, and 12,804. The value of foxes sold alive for stock was $2,501,816.
Germany has some six hundred fur farms ; fur animal breeding in Switzerland is under the direct encourage- ment and assistance of the Government ; Austria has about twenty silver fox and seventy smaller fur animal farni ; the Czechoslovakian Government strongly supports the Union of Czechoslovakian Fur Animal Breeders and also owns a model farm on which experi- ments for the benefit of breeders arc carried on ; Norway imported a pair of silver foxes in 1913, but the NVar suspended development of the industry and it was not until 1924 that it really found its feet. Thereafter the figures for 1926, 1027 and 1928, which arc respectively 2,735, 6,328, and 14,379 registered silver foxes, show how convinced of its permanence and profitable nature are the Norwegians. It may be added that last year there was a still greater increase in the numbers of foxes on the Norwegian farms. Following after these, the British industry makes a small show, being carried out on only about sixty silver fox farms, but, now that it has started, it is going rapidly ahead and the established farms have already proved that silver fox breeding can be successfully practised in almost every part of Great Britain.
So much for British fur farming. The question arises now as to the method of turning its advent to the furtherance of humanitarian methods in obtaining furs, and here I can only say that, after reminding those interested of the painlessness of the farmed animals' deaths, the way seems open for some linking up of the mutual interests of the humanitarians and the fur farmers. Were I to venture into a forecast of a possible solution, at once practical and economic, I should hint at some central body founding an experimental fur farm upon which satisfactory types of would-be fur farmers could be trained, and, afterwards, possibly financed, and from which stock could be rented to them while getting on their own feet. From such a farm, which would undoubtedly be self-supporting if properly run, the impetus to co-operation could be given which would draw all the increasingly great supply of British- bred, humanely-killed animals (there would be no need to stop at silver fox breeding) into the hands of a central selling organisation. Only by some such means can I see any poSsibility of anyone in this country exercising any control over the methods of fur taking.
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