Fur farms: Whom would Jesus skin?

Kathleen Stachowski     Other Nations

“It’s farming. It is just a different type of farming.” So said Larry Schultz in a bid to move his bobcat fur farm from North Dakota–away from the hustle and bustle of booming Bakken shale oil production–to Fergus County, Montana.

The term “fur farm” makes stomachs churn with apprehension—if not horror–depending on how much one already knows. These shadowy enterprises don’t throw their doors open to public scrutiny, so what we know of them comes from undercover investigative reports and video. But calling it “farming” can’t legitimize an ethically-bereft industry that turns sentient, nonhuman animals into jacket trim.  

According to the Great Falls Tribune, “the purpose of the facility is raising and selling bobcats and then harvesting them for their furs…” It’s unclear if the animals will be sold alive or killed on the premises; Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks’ (FWP) environmental assessment (EA) doesn’t mention disposal of fur-stripped carcasses (graphic)—an oversight if animals are to be killed onsite. An August 1^st inquiry seeking clarification from the game warden in charge has gone unanswered.

The EA submitted by FWP for public comment (8/29 deadline) deals strictly with facility siting, physical and human environmental impacts, and security—no mention of animal cruelty or commodification of wildlife. (While fur farmed animals must be captive-bred, what are bobcats if not wild animals?) Indeed, state code defines “all furbearers lawfully raised on a licensed fur farm (as) the private property of the licensee.” A state license costs $25 with an annual renewal fee of $15–making fur farming a lucrative business when fur prices are high and compassion is not.

Life existence down on the farm

Fur farms are secretive places for good reason: their inmates suffer existences of emotional and physical deprivation and anguish. Confined for life in wire cages, they stand on wire their entire lives, too—to allow their waste to drop out of the cage. They tend to exhibit the same abnormal behavior we see in other captives (zoo and circus animals; puppy mill breeding dogs)—circling, pacing, head bobbing, and other repetitive, compulsive behaviors including self-mutilation. Unable to act on their instincts and deprived of everything natural, they are the stir-crazy victims of capitalism at its most depraved.

And then there’s the end of existence. One common fur farm practice is anal electrocution (video), where a powerful current is sent surging between a metal rod clamped in the animal’s mouth and a rod inserted in the anus (ask yourself: what kind of people can actually do this?). Gassing, neck-breaking, and lethal injections—sometimes gruesomely crude—are also employed. If animals aren’t slaughtered onsite, they face the stress of transport prior to death.

As cash crops, furbearing animals can’t look to human laws for protection. No federal laws protect fur farmed animals; in Montana, where fur farming is a considered a form of agriculture, state agency oversight is minimal. Because the fur farm in question will increase tax revenue and agricultural production for Fergus County, FWP’s preferred alternative is to grant a license to the man who maintains that raising bobcats is no different than raising cattle or growing wheat. I agree with him about cattle (as a vegan, I can avoid that moral morass). But wheat?

Whom would Jesus skin?

The Fergus County fur farm–should it be approved (all but assured)–won’t be Montana’s first by a long shot. As of July 2013, 15 licensed fur farms were doing business in Big Sky Country, according to the commercial wildlife permit manager for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Enforcement.

The Fraser Fur Farm, another wildcat operation doing its evil business east of Ronan, MT, was targeted by animal activists (“ecoterrorists,” according to the Ronan Valley Journal) earlier this year. Reportedly, breeding records were destroyed but cages remained unbreeched due to security measures.

“I feel violated,” the operation’s owner told the Lake County Leader (Polson, MT) following the incursion. (Oh please. For the last word on violation, let’s consider anal electrocution.) “They are not nice people,” she said of the activists.

She said her faith in the Lord and her belief that we humans are all made in the image of Christ is why she does not feel that what she does is wrong. God made animals for us to utilize, Kathy said. She feels these activists value animals and nature above human lives.  ~”Activists target Ronan fur farm,” Lake County Leader

Whenever exploiters use Jesus for cover, I’m involuntarily visited by disturbing mental images. After a local equine activist used the bible to justify horse slaughter (“a biblically sound practice”), I pictured Jesus wielding a captive bolt gun in a slaughterhouse, his white robe splattered with the blood of the innocent. Now here he is on a fur farm–maybe the Fraser fur farm–inserting the electrode into the frightened animal’s rectum.

Would he pause–perhaps moved by mercy and compassion–to consider the sentient life whose fate he held in his hands? Would he look into the terrified eyes of the suffering and the doomed and see a fellow being who simply wanted to live?

Or would he see a cash crop–a “resource” to be “harvested” like so much wheat? Would he flip the switch and reach for the skinning knife?
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Learn more:

• Born Free USA: The fur farm fallacy – here.
• Human crimes against animals: Fur Farms, from all-creatures.org
• “Skin Trade” the movie — includes 2-minute trailer
• Danish organization Anima footage from Danish fur farms (2009-10). Conditions documented included animals with large wounds, animals that exhibited stereotypic behaviour, cannibalism, etc. The footage comes from one farm where more than 100 injured animals were found.
• First person account from an adult recalling childhood on grandpa’s fur farm in Idaho.
• Seton Hall Law eRepository; Student Scholarship: “A Federal Ban on Fur Farming Across the United States: Long Overdue Legislation” here.
• Fur farming propaganda: “Fur Farming Ethics” video. Ask yourself how many “mom & pop” fur farms hiding out in rural America run operations that look like this?