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 Foxes
in Boxes
Minks are the fur farm animals of choice, with 2.55 million pelts
produced in the U.S. during the 2003 season, down 2 percent from the
previous year, not counting the animals who die of disease or “mishaps”
before they can be pelted. According to a National Agriculture Statistics
Service (NASS) report dated July 15, 2004, there are 307 mink farms
in the U.S., down 5 percent from a year ago.
Ranchers also breed foxes, beavers, and rabbits for fur. In the U.S.,
fur farms produced approximately 50,000 fox-fur pelts last year.
 Some
of them came from a place not far from the Eastern Seaboard where
dead animals and animal parts litter the grounds in various states
of decay. "Breeder" foxes peer intently from their cages,
their view of the world chopped into the rectangles created by the
mesh wiring. Their food containers are rusty cans, feces is piled
up to boot-rim height, and the buildings groan in disrepair. The owner
showed our investigators a wheelbarrow full of blood and skinned minks’
bodies and, not far off, two cages dripping with the corpses of foxes
newly killed and skinned. One fox’s body, stripped of fur except
around the ankles, lay in the dirt. The smell of decay permeated the
place.
An undercover investigation into one randomly selected Northeastern
fur farm caught one fur farmer illegally killing minks by injecting
an insecticide into their hearts. This crude method of killing causes
animals to convulse for up to 10 minutes before they die.
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