Fur farming will be permanently stopped in the Netherlands in March 2021 - three years before a ban was due to come into effect.

The Dutch Government’s fast-tracking of a phase-out follows multiple COVID19 outbreaks among mink at fur farms and suspected transmissions of the virus to employees.

Dutch news broadcaster NOS is reporting that “the early termination of mink farming is the result of the coronavirus outbreak on many farms. More than 40 companies have recently been affected by the virus and all the minks there have been culled.”

It outlined that the government is concerned that, in the long term, virus reservoirs will form at affected fur farms and that more people could become infected as a result.

The NOS report adds that the country’s Deputy Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister Carola Schouten is to tighten up coronavirus measures on the companies and conduct an investigation into compliance with the corona rules by the sector.

In June, Minister Schouten warned that "the virus can continue to circulate for a long period of time in mink breeding farms and can therefore be a risk for public health and animal health".

Here in Ireland, the following month, the then Minister for Agriculture Barry Cowen was asked about COVID19 on fur farms here. In a 7th July Dail Question, Social Democrats TD, Jennifer Whitmore asked “if he has examined Irish mink farms in response to an increasing rate of Covid-19 infection amongst mink at Dutch fur farms” and if he planned to review the operation of the fur farms.

Barry Cowen (who was sacked on 15 July) told her that it was his understanding that “the Department of Health is not aware of any human cases of COVID-19 associated on mink farms” and that the Department of Agriculture has “written to mink farms in Ireland to provide information on SARS-CoV-2 infection in mink and to advise on the precautions that should be taken to prevent their mink being exposed to the virus”.

His successor, Dara Calleary TD (who resigned on 21 August), confirmed that the Department of Agriculture "is in the process of preparing a Bill to provide for the phased introduction of a ban on fur farming which will include a prohibition on mink farming". He did not reveal the duration of the phase-out period.

Please join us in urging the new Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue TD to follow the Dutch Government in fast-tracking the closure of the three remaining fur farms here.

ACTION ALERT

Contact Agriculture Minister, Charlie McConalogue, and tell him that you want fur farms shut down NOW (instead of being phased out). Remind him that an 80 per cent majority want fur farming ended.

Minister Charlie McConalogue TD
Tel: (01) 618 3199 OR (074) 917 7282
Email: charlie.mcconalogue@oireachtas.ie
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CharlieMcConalogue
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/@McConalogue

Contact Taoiseach Micheal Martin and Fianna Fail and urge them to immediately shut down fur farms where mink are cruelly caged and gassed to death at 6 months of age.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin
Leader, Fianna Fail
Email: micheal.martin@oireachtas.ie; info@fiannafail.ie
Phone: 021-432 0088
Leinster House: 01–618 3000
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michealmartintd/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/@MichealMartinTD