Ann Arbor, Michigan just made history by becoming the first city in the entire Midwestern United States to completely ban the sale of newly made fur products — for which animals are confined, tortured, neglected, and ultimately slaughtered. The physical and behavioral issues inherent to animals on fur farms, such as mink or foxes, are haunting — animals born into filthy, tight cages are crowded together. They are injured in accidents or fights, and their wounds, missing limbs, and infections go widely untreated. The stressful, unnatural setting of these farms leads to behaviors like self mutilation, cannibalism of fellow dead animals, and stress-related behaviors like pacing, circling, or depression creating a sort of comatose withdrawal from life itself.
And that is just what the animals go through when they are alive. To harvest their skin and fur, people stoop to the lowest, most gruesome methods — these poor babies are gassed, their necks broken, or they are electrocuted with devices inserted into their anuses or genitals. These unreliable methods often leave these animals alive but in immeasurable pain as they are skinned alive.
Fur products are totally unnecessary when you consider how much misery goes into making them — not to mention, these farms are hotbeds for COVID-19 outbreaks, a disease that originally began in animals before ravaging people. That’s why we are calling on three more midwestern cities to follow Ann Arbor’s lead. Sign the petition joining us in asking Chicago, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee to put a huge stopper in the demand for fur products and ban their sale! These three cities must take a page out of Ann Arbor’s book, for the welfare of animals and people alike.