Your idea of what makes a current event important may differ from mine, but occasionally a story comes along that grabs everyone's attention. Enter coronavirus COVID-19. At the time of writing, some 6,000 people have already died, and that number is sure to rise - a lot. And if fears of a global recession to follow prove founded, billions of us will be negatively impacted. Millions already have been.

In short, it's the kind of event that makes people rethink their priorities. The price of potatoes suddenly seems inconsequential, and we may even put our favourite advocacies on hold. Who has the time to complain about white people wearing dreadlocks or mansplaining when lives are on the line?

And that's why I predict a small silver lining for the fur trade amidst the current catastrophe. In the coming year, there will be no major campaigns launched by animal rights groups in North America - or if there are, they will be roundly ignored. I also believe this lull will provide an opportunity for us to regroup and rethink our strategy after taking some tough knocks in 2019.

Posturing Politicians

Last year was hardly quiet on the news front, but unless you lived in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Myanmar, or quite a few other places to be honest, the news was unlikely to kill you. Climate change advanced apace, but even the most pessimistic of forecasters think we can still turn it around. The refugee crisis in Europe worsened further, but it barely affects North Americans. The Hong Kong riots grabbed headlines for a few months, but the Western media lost interest when China failed to invade. And everyone was sick to death of Brexit years before it even happened.

So it was against this backdrop of a "normal" news year that campaigns to ban fur retail sales in California and New York City were able to gain traction. Politicians could posture before potential voters, the media lapped up a polarising issue as they always do, and advocates could focus fully on either saving or destroying an industry.

SEE ALSO: There's no justification for banning the sale of fur. By Alan Herscovici.

Big Stories

But now the whole news landscape has changed, and, in just the last few weeks, been turned on its head.

For me, the change began with the Australian bushfires. It took a few months for them to register on the international radar, but when they did, we were appalled to see the extent of the devastation and loss of life. It was also a huge shot in the arm for the climate change campaign.

Then for a few days in January, while the bushfires were still at their peak, we seemed to be staring down the barrel of World War III. The US assassinated Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, Iran vowed to retaliate, Trump vowed to retaliate back harder, Iran fired missiles, and bizarrely the situation was only defused when Iran "accidentally" shot down a civilian airliner with no Americans on board but loads of Canadians. All very scary.

So the transition from 2019 to 2020 was a rollercoaster ride. And just when you thought it couldn't get any hairier, along came a pandemic.

I don't need to tell you the details of COVID-19 because, unless you live under a rock, you know them already. Suffice to say, this story will hog the headlines for the next several months at least, with new life being breathed into it every time a famous person falls ill or a major public event is cancelled. And even after a vaccine is found, the global recession that some experts are predicting will keep copywriters busy for years.

Changing Priorities?

So what does all this have to do with the great fur debate?

Well, I predict that life will change in myriad ways, one of which will be a resetting of priorities, not just at the government level but also at the personal level. Even more emphasis than before will be placed on cooperation on issues that really matter to the global community, while less time and effort will be spent on issues that are, in the grand scheme of things, unimportant.

It goes without saying that the world will emerge from this better prepared to face the next pandemic. Climate change will continue to garner great interest, in tandem with sustainable living. And it's way past time for governments to be held accountable for perpetuating war in Syria, Yemen, and anywhere else faced with this ultimate scourge.

In contrast, I believe, people wanting to "make a difference" will be less inclined to expend energy on petty and divisive issues to which there are no solutions anyway because there's no "right" or "wrong". When human lives and the future of the planet are at stake, there are surely better ways to spend your time than campaigning against smoking in public parks.

OK, so there's some wishful thinking on my part that this change will last, but I do believe that at least for the duration of the coronavirus crisis, animal rights groups will have a hard time getting anyone's attention, and might as well take a vacation. Remember, you heard it here first. For as long as the pandemic lasts, there will be no new initiatives launched to ban fur retail.

It's a simple matter of priorities. In quiet times, on the domestic front anyway, politicians obsess with pandering to any demographic group they think might help get them re-elected. But in a time of coronavirus, their focus must be on keeping their constituents alive. In quiet times, news desk editors lap up a PETA stunt, particularly if half-naked women are involved. But with coronavirus running amok, they're smart enough to know that their audience has no time for anything else. And as for the public, they're far too busy stockpiling toilet paper (I still can't see how that helps) to worry about whether Canada Goose is opening a new store for its coyote-trimmed parkas.

SEE ALSO: Five reasons PETA won't make me ditch my Canada Goose. By Alan Herscovici.

This new reality will provide an opportunity - or at least a time-out - for all animal users to regroup and strengthen our message in preparation for the time when animal rights groups think it's business as usual again.

We already have a formidable arsenal of arguments in our favour, dealing with issues that are important to a growing number of people. We can effectively argue sustainability, ethics, cultural heritage, jobs, wildlife management, and more. I believe that post-coronavirus, the world will be more discerning about which messages it listens to, and we just have to be more effective at getting ours across.

Don't get me wrong about absolute priorities. There's a potentially lethal pandemic under way, and nothing is more important than staying safe. And that goes for everyone - even animal rights extremists! But when the smoke clears, there may be a rare opportunity here for the fur trade to change the narrative.

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The following essay appeared recently in the Toronto Star (Canada’s largest circulation newspaper), as the pro-fur side of a debate on whether banning the sale of fur apparel and accessories is justifiable.

If we look at facts, those of us who care about the environment, ethical lifestyles, and social justice should promote natural fur, not seek to ban it. Let's review some of the reasons why wearing fur makes sense for anyone wishing to embrace a sustainable and responsible way of living.

Fur today is produced responsibly and sustainably. Only abundant furs are used, never endangered species. This is assured by provincial/state, federal and international regulations.

In the wild, most species produce more offspring than their habitat can support to maturity. Animals that don’t make it feed others, and we too can use part of this natural surplus. This is an excellent example of  “the sustainable use of renewable natural resources”, a cornerstone of the World Conservation Strategy.

There is little waste. Many fur animals – especially beavers and muskrats -- provide food for trappers and their families. Others are returned to the woods to feed birds, mice, and other animals. And because fur is “prime” in late Fall/Winter when the young of the year are already autonomous, activist claims that coyotes or other animals leave behind “starving pups” are nonsense.

Many furbearers would be culled even if we didn’t use fur. Overpopulated beavers flood property. Coyotes are top predators of lambs, calves and, increasingly, pets. Raccoons and foxes spread rabies and other diseases ... the list goes on. But if we must cull some of these animals to maintain a balance, surely it is more ethical to use the fur than to throw it away?

SEE ALSO: Reasons we trap. Truth About Fur website.

Trappers take animal-welfare responsibilities very seriously: Canada is the world leader in humane trapping research, and traps are certified to conform with the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards. Trapping is also strictly regulated in the US, under state “Best Practices” provisions.

SEE ALSO: Neal Jotham: A life dedicated to humane trapping.

Fur farmers – producing more than half the fur in North America -- follow codes of practice to ensure their animals receive excellent nutrition and care. Farms are certified to confirm that codes are followed, and farmers may be charged for animal cruelty if they are not. In any case, providing proper care is the only way to produce high-quality fur.

SEE ALSO: Calling PETA: US fur farming is strictly regulated.

Farmed mink recycle left-overs from our own food production – parts of cows, chickens and fish that we don’t eat and might otherwise clog landfills. Manure, straw bedding, and other farm wastes are composted to produce high-quality organic fertilizer, completing the agricultural nutrient cycle.

In contrast to mass-produced “fast fashion”, each fur garment or accessory is crafted individually by artisans, maintaining skills passed from father to son or daughter. Furs are preserved (“dressed”) using alum salts, lanolin, and other benign chemicals; the activist claim that “a World Bank report cited fur dressing as polluting” is simply not true. Furthermore, furs come in a wide range of natural colours, minimizing the need for dyes.

Fur is long-lasting, recyclable, and after decades of service can be thrown into the garden compost. Compare that with fake fur and other synthetics: generally made from petrochemicals, they are not biodegradable and leach micro-particles of plastic into our waterways when washed -- plastics that are now being found in marine life. Cruelty-free indeed!

SEE ALSO: The great fur burial. Truth About Fur proves that fur biodegrades.

Fur, however, is the activists’ designated scapegoat. Perhaps because fur is often associated with glamour and wealth? But most fur producers are not wealthy or glamorous. The ugly lies parroted by anti-fur activists are all the more odious because they attack the integrity and livelihoods of hard-working farm families; of First Nations and other trappers who are among the last people maintaining our North American land-based heritage; and of artisans producing warm and durable clothing with responsibly produced natural materials.

There is little public discussion of how insulting and hurtful activist lies are for the people involved. Living far from media centres, their voices are rarely heard. TruthAboutFur.com was created to help bridge that gap.

No one is obliged to wear fur, but each of us should have the right to make this decision for ourselves. Especially because animal activists now oppose any use of animals. The same misleading and insulting arguments and tactics used against fur are now being mustered against wearing leather, silk and wool; against eating meat or dairy products. Shall all these products be banned as well?

Each of us can decide where we draw the line, these are personal choices. But if you believe it’s ethical to use animal products that are produced responsibly and sustainably, you can wear fur with pride.

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We are living in troubling times, my friends. Politicians want to tax farmers and ranchers for emissions and slap sin taxes on meat to encourage plant-based diets. Celebrities are spinning faux science into meatless propaganda in the name of compassion to animals and the planet.

SEE ALSO: On activists, cyber bullying and meatless propaganda. BEEF Daily.

Packers are investing in plant-based protein companies. Farm bankruptcies are on the rise. Animal agricultural organizations are getting into bed with animal rights and environmental activist groups.

From a beef producer’s perspective, I sometimes wonder what my future looks like in this business. From a consumer’s perspective, I wonder if meat will always be available to me, or if the opposing side will ultimately win.

SEE ALSO: Who’s winning? Us or the anti-beef activists? BEEF Daily.

Just the other day, I received a hateful email from someone who expressed great joy that my viewpoints about ruminant animals benefitting the planet were archaic. With glee, she compared me to a dinosaur and said she was hopeful that people like me would one day cease to exist.

This person was, of course, threatening my life and wishing for me to be wiped off the face of the earth because of her love and compassion for a beef cow. It’s highly ironic the hateful things one person can say to another in the name of saving the life of an animal.

But it doesn’t stop with just hateful words from trolls.

These days, our ability to utilize an animal from nose to tail is being taken away, inch by inch, in the form of new laws.

For example, California became the first state to ban fur. In October, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 44 into law, banning the sale of new clothing and accessories made of fur.

According to an article in the New York Times, “For the purpose of the law, fur is defined as ‘animal skin or part thereof with hair, fleece or fur fibers attached thereto.’ For the purposes of shoppers, that means mink, sable, chinchilla, lynx, fox, rabbit, beaver, coyote and other luxury furs.

“Exceptions have been made for cowhide, deerskin, sheepskin and goatskin. Which means that shearling is totally fine. Exceptions have also been made for religious observances (shtreimels, the fur hats often worn by Hasidic Jews, can continue to be sold) and other traditional or cultural purposes.

“Keith Kaplan, of the Fur Information Council of America, issued the following statement after the California news broke: ‘This issue is about much more than animal welfare in the fur industry. It is about the end of animal use of any kind. Fur today, leather tomorrow, your wool blankets and silk sheets – and meat after that'."

SEE ALSO: The California fur ban and what it means for you. New York Times.

In New York City, a ban on foie gras is currently being considered. If passed, more than 1,000 New York City dining establishments that serve foie gras will be impacted, in addition to the duck and geese farmers operating in the state of New York.

According to an article published in Eater, “For years, fur and foie gras have been among the most contentious issues in the animal welfare debate. Foie gras is far from the only cuisine subjected to bans – horse meat, shark fins, beluga caviar and unpasteurized milk are some of the foods barred in numerous states due to concerns over ethics, animal endangerment, or public health.

“But foie gras producers say they have been unfairly targeted. They argue that the foie gras sector is ‘low-hanging fruit’ because the industry is small, it is linked to the elite, and misinformation has skewed public perception of duck farms.”

These are just two examples of how activists are hoping to curtail and eliminate the use of animals in our everyday lives. More than just taking meat, dairy and eggs off the dinner table, this would mean no more by-products. Cattle, pigs and sheep provide hundreds of beneficial products that enrich our lives, ranging from makeup to crayons to soaps and even pharmaceuticals.

This is dangerous territory and a slippery slope, indeed. First they come for the horses, then the egg-laying chickens, then the gestating pigs, then the fur, then the foie gras ... what’s next? Veal? Pets? Leather? Pigs' life-saving heart valves? Meat altogether?

I may not eat foie gras, and I may not wear fur. But I do own animals – both livestock and pets – and these laws aim to erode the very foundation and principles upon which ownership of animals is based. Be leery of politicians who aim to take away your rights in the name of compassion to animals. I know I am!

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This article was first published by BEEF Daily, Nov. 5, 2019, and is reproduced with permission. The opinions of the author are not necessarily those of beefmagazine.com or Farm Progress.

The remarkable tale of one man's experiment in domestication is told in How to Tame a Fox (And Build a Dog) [University of Chicago Press, 2017], by Lee Alan Dugatkin and Lyudmila Trut. Photo: Institute of Cytology and Genetics archives.

In the Fall of 1952, a Russian scientist boarded an overnight train from Moscow to Tallinn, the capital of Soviet Estonia. It was the beginning of a remarkable adventure that would change our understanding of animal domestication.

Dmitri Belyaev, a geneticist by training, was a lead scientist at the Central Research Laboratory on Fur Breeding Animals in Moscow, working to help the many government-run fox and mink farms produce more beautiful and valuable furs.  Fur farming was an important source of foreign currency for the Soviet government after the war, which provided Belyaev with some protection for the daring experiment he was about to launch.

It was protection he needed, because while Russian geneticists had once been world-leaders, this important new field of study was under attack in Stalin’s Russia. Soviet science policy was dominated by Trofim Lysenko, a poorly educated peasant’s son who rose to power in the 1930s as part of Stalin’s glorification of the common man. Lysenko’s bizarre theories were eventually discredited, but meanwhile a generation of geneticists lost their jobs because their work would have exposed Lysenko as a fraud.  Some – including Belyaev’s own brother -- were imprisoned and killed.

Belyaev enjoyed a measure of freedom because of his success in developing valuable new genetic lines of mink. But the daring new project he was about to launch went far beyond his mandate to increase the value of fur production.

Belyaev was fascinated by the question of how animals had first come to be domesticated. The way farmers selectively breed domesticated plants and animals for desirable traits was quite well understood. But this didn’t explain how certain species had been domesticated in the first place. Or why so few species of plants and animals out of the millions on the planet had ever been domesticated - only a few dozen animals, mostly mammals, plus a few fish, birds, and insects such as silk worms and honey bees.

Scientists by now believed that dogs were the first species domesticated by humans, some 15,000 years ago, and that they had evolved from wolves. But no one really understood how wolves – animals that generally fear and avoid or act aggressively towards humans – developed into man’s best friend, an animal that is attracted to and trusts humans.

Belyaev was also intrigued by the fact that so many of the changes that occur in many different domesticated species were so similar. As Charles Darwin had noted, they often had patches of different colours on their coats. And they often retained physical traits from childhood that their wild cousins outgrew as they matured: floppy ears, curly tails, shorter snouts and babyish faces – neotonic features that make young animals so “cute”. But why would breeders have selected for these traits? Farmers received no benefit, after all, from cows with spotted hides or pigs with curly tails. So why had they emerged?

Belyaev had a theory that domestication – with all the qualities that distinguish domesticated animals from their wild cousins -- might be triggered by selecting for just a single trait: tameness. It had been suggested that dogs evolved from less aggressive wolves – individuals that would have been low-ranking in their own packs but were tolerated close to human settlements, where they gained access to a more reliable source of food and thrived. Belyaev wondered if this process might be replicated by repeatedly selecting the least aggressive foxes on fur farms for breeding.

Floppy Ears and Curly Tails

One of the well-known features of domesticated animals – dogs, cats, cows, pigs -- is that they can breed several times a year, not just once like most of their wild ancestors.  If farmed foxes could be bred more than once a year there would be a clear economic benefit – and this was Belyaev’s cover story as he approached a trusted colleague in Estonia that fateful day in 1952. Nina Sorokina was in charge of some 1,500 silver foxes on a large government-owned farm in a remote forest hamlet. She was surprised by Belyaev’s proposal, because silver foxes were generally quite fearful and aggressive towards people, but she agreed to begin selecting and breeding a group of the least aggressive animals.

The foxes Sorokina bred in Estonia provided the nucleus for a much larger project that Belyaev launched at a new research centre in Siberia as Lysenko was finally repudiated after Stalin’s death. The results soon followed, validating Belyaev’s ground-breaking theories of domestication. Within ten generations – barely a blink in evolutionary time -- foxes were being born that were noticeably tamer. These puppy-like foxes had floppy ears, piebald spots, and curly tails. Some of these pups eagerly approached humans with their tails wagging, behavior never seen before in foxes. As scientific knowledge of hormones evolved, it was confirmed that these newly domesticated foxes had far lower levels of stress hormones. In the next stage of the research, several of the tamest foxes actually lived in a house with one of the lead scientists, Lyudmila Trut, and soon acted very much like dogs.

The speed with which these changes in the physiology and behavior emerged confirmed Belyaev's radically new understanding of the process of domestication. Since Darwin, scientists had assumed that change could occur only in small increments over long periods of time, driven by a gradual accumulation of useful but random genetic mutations. The speed with which these new domesticated foxes evolved, however, suggested to Belyaev that the changes revealed a range of genetic variation that already existed within the original fox population.

This would explain why such a small number of plant or animal species has ever been domesticated. Wild horses, for example, must have had a wide range of genetic variation within their populations, facilitating domestication, while zebras – which have sometimes been somewhat tamed, but never domesticated – do not.

Belyaev was ahead of his time in proposing that important changes to physiology and behaviour might result without the mutation of genes, but rather through the activation or deactivation of existing genes in response to new environmental pressures -- in this case, the selection for tamer foxes. The disruption of long-established systems of genetic stability could provoke a complex suite of changes (curly tails, spotted coats, shorter snouts, etc.) in surprisingly few generations.

Belyaev’s ground-breaking ideas were, in fact, originally sparked by his observation of farmed mink, where he saw new colour strains – pastels, sapphires, violets, pearls – emerge less than 30 years after wild mink were brought onto farms.

Not least interesting, Belyaev’s work puts the lie to activist claims that farmed mink and foxes are “wild animals” that should not be kept in captivity. These species have been selectively bred on farms for more than 100 generations, resulting in significantly different colours, size, and behaviour. These are no longer "wild" animals.

The full story of this extraordinary research project has now been told for the first time in a wonderful book, How to Tame a Fox (And Build a Dog), co-authored by Lyudmila Trut and Lee Alan Dugatkin. Trut heads the research group at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, and continues to lead Belyaev's fox project to this day. Dugatkin is a professor of biology at the University of Louisville and a science writer. Fur farmers and anyone interested in animals and domestication will find it a fascinating read!

FURTHER READING: How humans domesticated themselves. National Public Radio, October 31, 2020.

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Recent proposals by Los Angeles, San Francisco, and now New York city councilors to ban fur sales should not only worry furriers who risk losing their jobs and businesses. These proposals should be a matter of grave concern to anyone who values living in a free, fair and tolerant society.

There are so many things wrong about the proposed bans on fur sales that it is hard to know where to begin, but let’s look at six of the most important problems:

SEE ALSO: New York fur ban: Furriers fight to save sustainable industry.

1. These proposals to ban fur sales are a flagrant example of arbitrary government infringement on fundamental human rights. No one is forced to wear fur, and animal activists are free to campaign against the fur trade, but this does not give them the right to impose their personal beliefs on others. After decades of anti-fur campaigning, many people still clearly want to buy fur. The activist response is to seek legislation that would take away our right to choose for ourselves. This should have alarm bells ringing on all sides of the political spectrum!

2. It is illogical and discriminatory to consider banning fur sales when 95% of Americans eat meat and wear leather. Of course, PETA and other “animal rights” groups that are lobbying to ban fur sales are equally opposed to any use of animals, even for food.  But most North Americans do not accept this extreme view; most of us believe that humans do have a right to use animals for food, clothing and other purposes, so long as these animals are treated responsibly. There is no justification for banning fur sales while hundreds of millions of cows, pigs and sheep, and several billion chickens, are killed each year for food in North America. Even philosopher Peter Singer stated in his landmark Animal Liberation – the book that launched the animal-rights movement – that it is completely hypocritical to campaign against the fur trade while most Americans continue to eat meat, eggs, fish and dairy.

3. As a society we do, of course, sometimes restrict personal choice, but only for very important reasons. To ensure that animals will be there for us in the future, for example, we ban trade in endangered species. But endangered species are never used in the fur trade; all the furs we use today are raised on farms or culled from abundant wildlife populations. This is assured by state, national and international regulations. Animal welfare must also be respected -- and decades of scientific research and government regulations ensure that fur today is produced responsibly and humanely. Trapping in North America is regulated by state (in Canada, provincial) wildlife authorities, in accordance with ISO standards and the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards. Fur farms are being inspected and certified to ensure compliance with codes of practice developed by veterinarians and animal scientists. There is simply no credible evidence that fur animals are treated less respectfully than other animals we use for food or clothing.

4. Wildlife populations often must be culled to protect property and human (and animal) health, whether or not we use their fur. Overpopulated beavers flood homes, farms and roads; raccoons and foxes spread rabies and other diseases; coyotes are the main predators of lambs and calves – and now attack pets and even people in urban areas; predators must also be managed to protect sea turtle eggs and other endangered species; and the list goes on. But if we must cull some of these animals, surely it’s more ethical to use the fur than to throw it away.

5. The fur trade supports livelihoods and cultures, especially in rural and remote regions where alternate employment may be hard to find. We all care about nature, but most of us now live in cities; indigenous and other trappers are our eyes and ears on the land, the people who monitor wildlife on a daily basis and can sound the alarm when nature is threatened. Fur farms provide employment in regions where the soil is too poor for other agriculture, helping to support rural communities. Fur artisans maintain handicraft skills that have been passed down from generation to generation. In this age of mass-production, each fur garment and accessory is still made individually, by hand. The fur trade maintains a range of remarkable skills and knowledge, a part of our human heritage that should be respected and encouraged, not persecuted with bans based on hateful and misleading propaganda.

6. Finally – and certainly not least – fur apparel is a long-lasting, natural material that is recyclable and completely biodegradable. After many decades of use, your fur can be thrown into the garden compost where it returns to the Earth. By contrast, most clothing today is made from petroleum-based synthetics that do not biodegrade. Instead, these synthetics leach thousands of plastic micro-particles into our waterways every time they are washed – plastic that is now being found in oysters and other marine life. It is bizarre at a time when we are trying to reduce our use of plastic – for example, by banning the use of plastic bags and water bottles – that some cities would even consider banning a long-lasting, recyclable and biodegradable natural material like fur!

SEE ALSO: Fur bans: Society has much more to lose than fashion.

As this quick review shows, recent proposals to ban fur sales are anything but “progressive”. They would unjustifiably usurp our right to use a sustainably produced, natural and biodegradable clothing material. They are arbitrary and discriminatory, especially in a society where most people eat meat and wear leather. They are completely unjustified because the modern fur trade is extremely well-regulated to ensure environmental sustainability and the responsible treatment of animals. And they would unfairly attack the livelihoods and cultures of thousands of people who maintain heritage craft skills and a close relationship with the land.

Again: no one is forced to wear fur. But everyone should be concerned about these misguided proposals to take away our right to make up our own minds about very personal and complex ethical choices.

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What you can do to help! Make your voice heard at: www.ShoppersRights.org

Consumers today have expectations about everything they buy, from electronics to clothing to furniture -- and manufacturers and retailers of these products are being held to ever higher standards. A big part of consumer confidence is the traceability of products they buy, and the good news for the North American fur trade is that we are well ahead of the curve.

If we order fish in a restaurant, we want to know that it's safe to eat. Hopefully, it also came from a sustainably harvested stock, and the people who processed it enjoy good working conditions. We want our meat to be free of harmful drugs, and to come from farms that observe high animal-welfare standards. Traceability becomes more complicated, of course, when raw materials come from several countries, the product is assembled in a different country, and sold in yet another.

While most industries are running just to keep up with emerging traceability requirements, the North American fur trade has a head start. After years of having every aspect of our operations closely scrutinized, today we are a world leader in the key standards of animal welfare and sustainability. We are also perfectly positioned to meet the standard of traceability now being demanded by consumers.

Development of FurMark

This was clearly revealed when the international fur trade began looking into the development of a new global program called FurMark. This promises to be "an independent, world-class comprehensive certification and traceability program that addresses and assures sustainability and animal welfare."

The impetus for FurMark began with fur farmers and the European fur trade wanting full traceability for their products, to satisfy the requirements of international fashion companies. The desire was for a mark or brand, backed up by a certification program that could assure everyone in the supply chain that the fur they were buying met prescribed standards of animal welfare and sustainability. That motivation has since spread globally, and a full roll-out of the program is now targeted for 2020.

While originally intended to provide reassurance about farmed fur, producers of wild fur inevitably also wanted to be part of this important new program. In response, experts in North America compiled a full list of requirements to assure standards of animal welfare, sustainability and traceability, from the trapline to the finished product. The initial goal was just to make a list and see where there might be any gaps, but then a funny thing happened. When everything was put on the table, it was discovered that there really weren’t any significant gaps beyond some proprietary technology issues (related to things like coding and tags).

In essence, standards and traceability for wild fur were already fully assured by way of a full suite of government, industry and independent requirements and documentation (including, but certainly not limited to, the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards, CITES, ISO standards, etc.). Those elements support the highest possible levels of regulation, science, permits, enforcement, traceability, animal welfare and sustainability. Everything that was needed was already there!

North American Wildlife Conservation

The fact that everything was already in place for an effective traceability program will not really surprise anyone who understands how North American wild fur is produced. Our wildlife conservation model is the best in the world, and the wild fur trade is a very important part of that model.

Just consider the basics of wild fur. Animals are taken only from abundant populations, with a focus on achieving balanced ecosystems with protections for threatened or endangered species. Trappers are trained in the use of traps that have been rigorously tested using the most advanced scientific methods to assure animal welfare. Trappers also function as providers of scientific data to professional wildlife managers. The pelts they harvest are then tracked all the way from the dealers who first purchase them, to the auction houses, and on to their final buyers. And at every stage there are strict government regulations and permitting and licensing systems, all backed up by science.

In short, the North American model not only works, it exceeds expectations. When our wild fur experts  finished studying how to be compliant with FurMark, they realised they had already put decades of work into an issue that many other industries are still struggling to catch up with.

Cloud-Based Blockchain

To ensure traceability, FurMark comes with a cloud-based blockchain system with a company called ChainPoint that will trace pelts from the auction houses through all the stages of manufacturing.

Fur farmers will attain FurMark certification by undergoing animal welfare and environmental audits by independent third parties.

Dressers and dyers will also be subjected to independent testing and certification. They must use only chemicals from an approved list; undergo government inspections of factory outputs; and agree to random spot-checks of dressed/dyed pelts to ensure compliance.

But it is not FurMark alone that will be providing assurances. Auction houses, manufacturers and retailers are developing their own programs to compliment and enhance the FurMark effort.

Animal welfare in the North American wild fur industry is supported through the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards, ISO standards, Best Management Practices, and various Federal, State, Provincial and Territorial regulations that ensure traps and trapping meet the most stringent, scientifically proven humane harvesting standards.

Humane, Sustainable, Traceable

So what does all this mean?

If you are a North American producer of fur, be it a farmer or a trapper, it means you should be proud of all you have in place to ensure that your harvests are humane and sustainable, and that the end products will soon be more traceable than ever before.

For trappers, it means there are no further government or industry regulations needed to achieve traceability or consumer reassurance, because they already exist and are working extremely well. Canadian fur farmers have adopted codes of practice developed by veterinarians and animal scientists under the auspices of the National Farm Animal Care Council, and are now putting into place a system for third-party audit and certification.

If you work in other sectors of the fur trade, from the auction house to the retailer, it means you are buying and selling a sustainable product that comes with all the standards and traceability that a modern industry should have.

And most importantly, if you are a consumer thinking about buying North American fur, it means you can do so with the utmost confidence that you are making a responsible choice.

When animal activists pressure designers to stop using fur in their collections, or politicians to ban the sale of fur products in their cities, we rarely consider what society would lose if we turn our backs on fur.

Activists claim that fur is a frivolous luxury; that no one needs to wear fur anymore. But fur is a natural, sustainable and responsible clothing material. And we will lose a lot more if activists are successful in vilifying fur.

Let’s take a look at what we lose as a society if we allow animal activists to dictate the discussion about fur:

1. Fur Craftsmanship – a Remarkable Heritage

This issue is close to my heart because my paternal grandfather was trained as a furrier by his father, in Paris, before coming to Montreal as a young man, in 1913. My own father also worked his whole life in the trade. So I am saddened that there is so little recognition or respect for this remarkable heritage industry. In this age of impersonal mass-production, fur is one of the few clothing materials that are still hand-crafted, by skilled artisans. Specialized knowledge and skills are needed to select, cut, sew, and assemble fur pelts to produce a beautiful garment or accessory. These skills have been maintained and perfected through centuries, passed down from parents to their children.

When I bring someone into a fur atelier, even people with experience in the apparel industry cannot believe that anyone is still doing this sort of meticulous hand-work. Fur craftsmanship is a wonderful example of the sort of authenticity many hipsters and others are seeking today. Fur apparel and accessories represent the marriage of human creativity with the beauty of natural materials.

The fur artisan’s skills and knowledge are part of our cultural history and heritage; they should be valued and protected - like world heritage sites and endangered species - not vilified, especially at a time when such handicrafts have become so rare. Like the wanton destruction by the Taliban of giant Buddhas carved into the mountainside at Bamiyan, in Afghanistan, or the burning of ancient libraries in Timbuktu by Islamic insurgents, the misguided scapegoating of centuries-old fur skills shows a complete lack of understanding and respect for our cultural heritage and the diversity of human experience.

2. Fur Trappers – True Stewards of the Land

If ever you’re in a plane that crashes into the northern wilderness, you’d better hope there’s a fur trapper aboard, someone with the skills and experience to provide food and keep the rest of you alive. We all care about nature, but most of us now live in cities and depend completely on complex distribution systems for our needs. Trappers are among the few who still go into the bush, alone, with only their knowledge of the land and animals to maintain themselves. Trappers are, in fact, our eyes and ears on the land; they are the ones who can sound the alarm when nature is threatened by industrial pollution or poorly planned development. It is trappers who inform logging companies about the location of eagle nests and other important habitat, so they can be protected. It is trappers who call in government wildlife biologists when they spot problems. At a time when we claim to care about protecting nature, we should respect the skills and knowledge of those who still live close to the land.

SEE ALSO: Trapping and sustainability.

First Nations and other trappers do not need lessons about respecting nature from urban activists! But activists have easy access to city-based journalists, and have mastered all the tricks to attract media attention. As PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk says, “We’re media sluts; we didn’t invent the game, we just learned how to play it!” With hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions from well-meaning urban supporters, this flourishing new protest industry has painted trappers as exploiters or enemies of nature, a complete falsehood. In fact, the well-regulated modern fur trade is an excellent example of sustainable-use principles promoted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

In simple terms, trappers take part of the surplus that nature produces every year. Only abundant furbearers are used, never endangered species. By taking part of the natural surplus, trappers help to smooth out population “boom and bust” cycles, maintaining more stable and healthy furbearer populations. Unfortunately, trappers live far from the media centres, and their voices - the voices of the true guardians of nature - are rarely heard.

SEE ALSO: Reasons we trap.

3. Fur Farmers – Supporting Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Communities

Thanks to more efficient practices, farmers now represent barely 2% of the North American population, compared with about 33% in 1900 - a demographic shift that poses challenges for the viability of rural communities and services. Fur farms provide needed employment, especially because mink and foxes can be raised on small parcels of land, and in regions where the soil is too poor or the weather too harsh for most other forms of agriculture.

Farm-raised mink and foxes are fed left-overs from other animal production, the parts of chickens, pigs, fish and other food animals that humans don’t eat. The manure, soiled straw bedding, and carcasses of the fur animals are composted to produce high-quality natural fertilizer to replenish the soil, completing the agricultural nutrient cycle.

The farm-raising of fur-bearing animals, which began in North America more than 120 years ago, also provides an efficient safety valve to reduce pressure on wild populations. And with careful selective breeding and excellent care, North American fur farmers have developed a remarkable range of natural colour ranges in mink and fox, reducing the need for the dyes needed with most textiles. Not least important from a social perspective, most fur-bearing animals are raised on family-run farms.

Natural, Renewable, Recyclable, Long-Lasting, Biodegradable

Fur craftspeople, trappers and farmers – together with fur buyers, processors, and a range of other specialized workers – maintain skills and knowledge that are part of our cultural heritage.

None of that would matter, of course, if animal species were being endangered or abused. But the modern fur trade is now conducted responsibly and sustainably. Trapping is strictly regulated by state and provincial wildlife departments, to ensure that only abundant furs are used, never endangered species.

North America is also the world leader in humane trapping research and development – work that provided the scientific basis for ISO standards, best practices, and the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards. Mink and fox farmers follow codes of practice to ensure excellent nutrition and care for their animals; this is the only way to provide the high-quality fur for which North America is known internationally.

SEE ALSO: Neal Jotham: A life dedicated to humane trapping.

Above all, fur is a natural, renewable, recyclable, long-lasting and ultimately biodegradable clothing material. After many decades of use, a fur garment or accessory can be thrown into your garden compost where it will return to the soil. By contrast, fake furs and other synthetic materials promoted by animal activists are generally made from petroleum, and are not biodegradable.

Simply put, most synthetics are another form of plastic bag. Troubling new research is revealing that these synthetics leach micro-particles of plastic every time they are washed - tiny plastic particles that are now being found in marine life and even in bottled water. Such synthetics may not be expensive to purchase, but they are very costly for nature and wildlife.

A sustainably produced, long-lasting and biodegradable natural clothing material. A rich heritage of increasingly rare craft skills. Support for rural and remote communities, and the responsible use and conservation of nature. The more closely we look, the more we understand how much we have to lose if we allow misinformed “animal rights” campaigns to turn designers, consumers and political leaders against North America’s founding industry.

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Part of modern life in Western societies involves dealing with a handful of people who believe they can tell the rest of us how to live. They call themselves “advocates” if they man a desk or "activists" if they like shouting at people, while the rest of us call them "bullies" or worse. They are more influential now than ever before, empowered by the reach of social media and unprecedented access to spineless politicians and lazy journalists. Against this backdrop, the state of siege by animal rights advocates against the fur trade has reached a critical point.

So how does the future of fur look? Following are some of my personal musings, but we'd be interested in hearing what your crystal ball shows.

Fur Farming Bans

Let’s start with an overview of some frustrating setbacks the fur trade has suffered in recent years, and as we do so, picture a bunch of rolling snowballs that start small and just grow and grow.

The first snowball was fur farming bans. It started rolling in 2000 when fur farming was banned in England and Wales. Since then, other European countries have followed suit, or will phase in bans in the near future.

These bans have harmed the fur trade not because they've disrupted production (no major producer has yet stopped fur farming), but because they've provided support for activist claims and fuelled the public perception that something about fur must be bad. Generally speaking, only bad things are banned, right? And this lays the groundwork for future attacks on the trade.

Paradoxically, while this was going on, the fur trade was actually bouncing back from a slump in the 1990s. Pelt production and prices were up, and exciting new design techniques were reflected in fur’s growing catwalk presence and rising retail sales.

Fur-Free Brands

Then in about 2015, a second snowball started gathering speed. After years of trying, with minimal success, to bully designer brands into dropping fur, animal rights advocates at last saw their efforts paying off. One by one, brands caved in, and when Gucci announced in 2017 its plan to drop fur, the media circus that followed ramped up the pressure even more on the holdouts. For the last year, barely a month has gone by without another brand going fur-free.

Ironically, Gucci’s high-profile flight from fur presented the fur trade with a golden opportunity to talk about its sustainability credentials. As part of their rationale for dropping fur, brands invariably cite advances made in fake fur, while failing to mention that it’s made from petroleum-based plastic – a non-renewable and unsustainable resource that pollutes and doesn’t biodegrade.

Fortuitously, at exactly the same time as Gucci announced its plan to drop fur, the hottest environmental news story was about our need to reduce our use of plastics, with a particular emphasis on micro-fibres used in clothing like fake fur. This played right into the wheelhouse of real fur which is sustainable, has a negligible environmental footprint during its production and lifetime, and after decades of use can be added to the garden compost pile to biodegrade.

SEE ALSO: Fur-free Gucci policy contradicts company's "sustainability" claims.

In response, animal rights advocates and some clothing companies are already proposing a way around this dilemma: If we can’t use real fur or plastic fur, the obvious solution is to make fur-like fabrics from organic materials. Right now research labs are feverishly trying to make “fur” out of such things as bark and mushrooms, and since "leather" made from pineapple leaves is already on the market, you can bet they'll succeed sooner or later.

Retail Bans

Now a third snowball is gathering momentum: retail bans. Unsurprisingly, it started in California, first in West Hollywood in 2013, then Berkeley, and then San Francisco. Now Los Angeles is drafting legislation for its own ban, while euphoric animal rights advocates say New York and Chicago are in their cross-hairs.

Meanwhile, in the UK, a campaign is in full swing to ban all fur imports to an entire nation, and their demand is bolstered by a simple piece of logic. Remember how I said fur farming bans lay the groundwork for future attacks? Now supporters of an import ban are arguing that it is illogical that the UK bans fur farming but still allows the sale of furs produced in other countries. The current Conservative government has shown no interest in taking such action, but the main opposition party, Labour, has vowed to introduce a ban if it's voted into power. When the next general election (scheduled for 2022) comes around, a fur ban may well be high on the agenda.

SEE ALSO: Proposals to ban fur sales are anti-ecological.

Why Fur Will Survive

While these snowballs now barrelling down on the fur trade may seem unstoppable, there are at least two major obstacles in their way.

In the mid-term at least, the fur trade will continue to be able to count on major markets such as China, Korea, Russia and other former Soviet Republics where the voices of Western animal rights advocates are largely ignored. That's not to say that animal welfare is not being discussed in these countries. But the activist message that will not easily translate is that animals have rights and should not be used by humans for any purpose. In time, animal welfare standards in non-Western countries may catch up with those of the West, but the prospect of these countries embracing animal rights is remote indeed. Even in North America and Europe, the signals are more complex than activists would like us to think. The trend of using fur for smaller accessories and trim has made fur more accessible; in fact, fur is now being worn by more young people than ever before.

SEE ALSO: Animal welfare vs. animal rights: An important distinction.

In the long term, the fur trade will not die because common sense will prevail. This will be rooted in a common understanding of three things: (a) that our future will depend on using renewable natural resources sustainably, (b) that there is a need to manage the natural environment, including wildlife, and (c) that sustainable use includes minimising waste.

Even now, many animal-loving city-dwellers who rarely have contact with wildlife are rethinking their views on what, for them, may be tough questions. For example, in a North American context, when an “urban coyote” attacks a child, should it be euthanised? What about beavers that flood roads and houses? Or raccoons that carry rabies into our cities? And if we agree that these animals should be culled, is it ethical to throw the fur away or should it be used? In the future, as our understanding of these issues continues to grow, more and more people will agree that using the fur is the ethical choice.

SEE ALSO: Is it ethical to produce, buy or wear fur?

Some Predictions

So how will the fur trade look in, say, the year 2100? Here are my predictions.

• The future of fur will be inextricably linked to that of fake fur, so let’s deal with that first. Fake fur made from plastic will no longer exist, maybe even 20 years from now. Instead, it will be made from organic materials, either agricultural waste or synthesised in labs. If you don’t think it will ever approach the qualities of real fur, I disagree. Scientists can be very creative given enough industry support, so expect to be wearing “furs” made from turnip heads or fungus by the end of the century. This will present stiff competition for real fur, just as plastic fur does today, but likewise it will sustain interest in fur's unique look while providing cover for real fur lovers from harassment by animal rights activists.

• Fur farming bans will remain in western Europe. It won’t matter whether acceptance of fur as a sustainable resource becomes more widespread. Bans tend to stay in place for the simple reason that they are much harder to lift than they are to impose, especially when lobby groups threaten to raise a ruckus. (For example, it's been largely accepted by wildlife managers that the US Marine Mammal Protection Act will never be amended to allow commercial harvesting of seals or other marine mammals, no matter how abundant or destructive they become.)

Elsewhere, the future of fur farming will depend on the industry's success in meeting new challenges. Animal rights terrorists will continue to try to drive fur farmers to financial ruin, and this in turn will negatively impact the recruitment of new farmers. But if farmers can weather this storm, another challenge will come from the rise of organic fake fur. As the performance of this new material improves, the viability of fur farming will depend on being able to produce pelts of a quality and type that fake fur makers cannot or choose not to imitate. (This is not exclusively a fur problem: producers of meat and other animal products will face similar challenges, and some already do. Butter competes with margarine, real milk with soy milk, and a variety of animal-free organic leathers are now available.) Fur farmers and their associations should begin thinking about their own "unique selling proposition", as marketers call it.

• As for the future of retail bans, my crystal ball is very cloudy. When West Hollywood banned fur sales, it was easy to dismiss this as the foible of a quirky little town, but San Francisco, Los Angeles, and perhaps the entire UK, cannot be so easily dismissed.. That said, the bans so far are largely symbolic because people can just buy fur elsewhere. Also, the courts have ruled that wild furs cannot be banned by municipalities in California since wildlife management is under state jurisdiction. It's also noteworthy that sheep fur is exempted from the ban proposed for San Francisco, perhaps because Californians love their Uggs so.

SEE ALSO: Sheep fur: Pamela Anderson hates it, Ralph Lauren loves it.

If I have to make a prediction, it's that in 2100 there may still be retail bans in some Californian cities and the UK, and perhaps a few other locations where no one wears fur anyway, but that will be it. But if animal rights advocates succeed in forcing bans in New York and Chicago, the future will be more difficult to predict.

• On a positive note, increased public understanding of sustainability issues may herald a new Golden Age for fur. Wildlife will always have to be managed, and no matter how good organic fake fur becomes, there will always be demand for “the real thing”.

Plus we're now seeing that design innovation and effective marketing can turn prices around. Prices for most wild furs have been depressed since the early 1990s, yet coyote prices are now at record levels thanks to the popularity of fur-trimmed parkas sparked by Canada Goose and its imitators. Perhaps in the future, with inspired design innovation and marketing, fur producers, designers and artisans will once again be properly rewarded for their efforts.

• Last and least, what does the future hold for all those animal rights advocates so bent on taking down the fur trade and any others that use animals? My tongue-in-cheek prediction is that they will all move to California, pass legislation making the entire state vegan, and leave everyone else alone. More seriously, I believe they will be shunned as social pariahs, and their days of leading politicians and designer brands by the nose will be over.

The game they are playing now is a double-edged sword. Their bullying tactics are currently quite effective in bringing about change, but as they expand their net to include everything from marine parks to fish burgers, and pets to carriage horses – which they are doing right now – they will make more and more enemies. By 2100, and probably long before, society at large will say, “Enough is enough!”

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Mink oil is a by-product of fur farming with a curious history that is hugely under-appreciated today. Once touted as a magical tonic for skin and hair, it’s now mostly used for less exotic purposes like leather conditioner and bio-fuel. But if you know where to buy, you can still give your complexion the treat it deserves.

Mink oil comes from the fat on a mink's abdomen. Most of the fat remains attached to the skin during pelting, and is removed during the "fleshing" process as it can "burn" the fur if not thoroughly scraped off before the pelts are stretched and dried. Each mink yields 200-300 grams (7 to 10.5 ounces) of fat. Just handling this fat tells you it's special as it melts into a pale-yellow oil that softens and soothes your hands. It's even more appealing when it's been purified and deodorised.

Native Americans would have been the first to notice how soft mink fat made their hands, but our story begins in the 1950s. After World War II, mink fur emerged as a fashion favourite, eclipsing the pre-war favourite, fox. Mink farming took off and a steady supply of mink oil was available for the first time. But who would buy it?

An obvious market was soon identified, leather conditioner, and that’s still a major use today. But the marketers had something more exciting in mind: cosmetics. Mink fur already had the luxe image, yearned for by any woman who could afford it or persuade her man to buy it. So the marketers pinned the luxe label on mink oil too, and a new range of beauty products was born.

Mink Oil Beauty Products

This was in keeping with the times. In Europe, the centre then and now of the cosmetics industry, companies were paying chemists to try anything that might unlock the secret to youth, including animal fats and a range of questionable animal extracts – hormones, embryos, placentas. So it really wasn’t surprising when, in 1949, a Paris-based company called Stendhal launched “L’huile de Vison” (The Oil of Mink).

The market was cool at first. Department store R.H. Macy introduced a mink oil cream in 1951 but found it a tough sell, and wondered if women might fear growing fur on their faces!

But things took off in the early 1960s with Stendhal’s "La Ligne Vison" (The Mink Line), featuring mink oil in pure form and in sunscreen, eye shadow, skin cream and soap. Competitors followed suit, adding mink oil to lipstick, cleanser, moisturizer and hair products.

A range of benefits, summarised here by Pureminkoil.com, were claimed:

• Mink oil supplemented human sebum (our natural skin lubricant and waterproofing) very well because its composition is so similar. Our skin absorbs it quickly and deeply because it passes through the pores rather than the epidermis. Our skin is moisturized and nourished, and left velvety to the touch, never sticky or oily. Hard spots are softened, and wrinkles are prevented.
• Mink oil was not associated with any allergies so it was perfect for hypoallergenic cosmetics.
• Mink oil formed a barrier that slowed the loss of both water and sebum from the skin. This meant your skin remained moist for longer after applying makeup.
• Conditioners and sprays containing mink oil increased hair body, suppleness and sheen, and improved the texture of damaged hair.
• Pure mink oil was so stable it could be used for two years after opening a bottle. Cosmetics containing it also stayed fresh longer.
• The mink was the "only animal in the world exempt from suffering any kind of skin diseases," and this "outstanding ability to heal on its own and their luxurious fur is distinctively related to its nourishing substance stored in its subcutaneous (under the skin) fatty layer of their skin."

We're not sure about that last one, but if mink oil cosmetics are so great, why are they hard to find these days? Maybe modern, high-end cosmetics work just as well and are cheaper to make or have a longer shelf life. Maybe also it’s because mink fur lost some of its near-mystical celebrity status in the 1990s, so mink oil’s greatest marketing strength faded too. And perhaps also it's because consumers, while still valuing natural ingredients in their cosmetics, now often prefer plant extracts to animal sources.

Whatever the case, most mink fat today has a less exotic destiny.

RECOMMENDED READ: Mink oil by Cosmeticsandskin.com

Still Prized

As any livestock farmer knows, efficiency is the key to profits, so it is important to use as much of the animal as possible. While it's rare for farmers to be paid for mink fat or oil today, they appreciate that the value of this resource lowers the cost of handling mink carcasses. The mink carcasses are usually composted into fertiliser – either on-farm or in separate facilities – or used to make bio-fuel. Mink oil is also used for bio-fuel, either alone or mixed with other animal fats. (The fat may be composted too, but it slows the process down.)

In regions where mink farms are clustered, the steady supply of fat is especially prized. Bio-fuel producers know that its protein level is higher than other animal fats, and that means more energy per unit. A good supply also makes refined and purified mink oil a viable business for use in cosmetics, leather conditioning and other purposes.

And that’s why North America’s biggest mink oil producer is based in Nova Scotia, the heartland of Canadian mink farming. Spec Environmental Solutions, which also composts mink carcasses, renders the fat at 70°C, producing some 500,000 lbs of mink oil last year.

Spec refines some of its mink oil for specialty markets but sells most in raw form to companies that further refine it for sale to end users. Most ends up with tanneries to make leather pliable and waterproof, but consumers also buy it to condition leather saddles and baseball mitts, to waterproof boots, and other uses. These are niche markets, but they can only grow with the growth of on-line shopping.

SEE ALSO: Why American mink is the world's favourite fur

Strict EU Regulations

In Europe, another centre of mink farming, the story is a little different. Strict EU regulations governing the disposal of carcasses mean that almost all mink carcasses, along with the fat, are turned into bio-fuel. Composting is rare. There are a few producers of mink oil, though not on the scale one might expect given Europe's position as the centre of the world's cosmetics industry and its biggest market. In the Netherlands, we're told, there are a handful of producers, and there's at least one each in Belgium and Iceland.

In Iceland, the Einarsson family farms horses, sheep and, for the past 34 years, mink. But it's always been a problem knowing what to do with the mink carcasses, since there's no local composting or bio-fuel production.

Making pet food is an option they're considering, but their breakthrough has been production of mink oil conditioner for leather shoes and saddles, and a range of lotions and creams, under the brand name Gandur.

Gandur had an unusual start in life, resulting in two product lines, one for humans and one for animals. "It all started when my mother decided to try to make a lotion for our horses, for when they develop sores around the hooves," explains Einar Eðvald Einarsson to the Iceland Monitor. "My brother is a vet and through him we tested it on more horses. One thing led to another and we started selling it."

Then humans started using horse hoof lotion for their own "various skin conditions" and a new product line for humans was born. Today, Gandur mink-oil products for humans are sold in pharmacies in Iceland, Sweden and Denmark.

"This is not a question of a great profit," Einarsson tells Truth About Fur. "This is a question of finding a use for a material that would otherwise be thrown away here in Iceland. We firmly believe this is of benefit for our environment."

So how does he feel about the merits of mink oil? Mink fat is high in omega fatty acids, he says, and more like the fat of a fish than that of a land animal. “The fat of the mink is much like our own fat, different from most other animal fats. The chains of fatty acids are very long and that’s why they are able to penetrate the skin so well. “

And there speaks a man who knows. Don't you owe it to your skin to find out for yourself? In the case of mink, it seems, beauty is indeed more than skin deep!

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The public debate about fur (and other animal products) is often distorted by confusion between two important concepts: animal welfare and animal rights. These terms sound similar and are often used interchangeably, but they describe two profoundly different ideas. Caring about the welfare of the animals we use – for food and other purposes – is very different from assigning them the rights that activist groups are now proposing.

Do you believe that farm animals should be treated humanely and spared unnecessary suffering? Then you are a proponent of animal welfare. Animal-rights advocates, by contrast, argue that humans have no right to use animals at all – not for food, clothing, or anything else. They believe that all livestock production should be shut down completely. “Not better cages, no cages at all!” is their rallying cry.

It is rare that we agree with PETA on anything, but its views on the chasm separating animal welfare and animal rights are spelled out clearly on its website for all to see:

“Animal rights means that animals are not ours to use for food, clothing, entertainment, or experimentation ... Animal welfare allows these uses as long as ‘humane’ guidelines are followed.”

Let’s see how this distinction plays out in the real world.

Eating Meat, Fish and Dairy

Animal-welfare advocates have worked for the past 100 years to ensure that the animals that provide us with meat, dairy products and eggs receive good nutrition and care. Thanks to their efforts we have humane-slaughter regulations, codes of practice and other provisions to minimize stress and suffering. This is an on-going process. For example, while modern production methods have made animal protein more affordable for millions, promoting healthy brain development for infants and children, they also raise new animal-welfare challenges.

Animal-rights advocates do not seek better conditions for farm animals. Rather, they oppose all killing and consumption of animals no matter how humanely this is done. Their openly-stated goal is to shut down all livestock farms and to end the consumption of meat, dairy, eggs, and any other animal products – even honey. They demand everyone becomes “vegan”, and argue that animal-welfare improvements only serve to justify what, for them, can never be justified, i.e., the killing of animals.

Wearing Leather, Fur, Wool and Silk

Again, animal-welfare advocates work to ensure that animals used for the skin, fur, feathers, hair, or other materials are treated humanely, with minimal suffering. Their efforts have driven North America’s world-leading trap-research program, and the development of codes of practice for fur farms.

Animal-rights campaigners oppose any use of all animal products for clothing or accessories. They often show examples of shocking abuse in their campaigns against fur, leather, and wool – which can make it look like they are concerned about animal welfare – but their goal is not better standards or regulations. They don’t believe humans have a right to use animals at all, which means no more wool, leather, fur, cashmere, down or even silk.

Owning Pets

Animal-welfare advocates believe that owning a pet is a privilege that comes with responsibilities. A pet needs to be housed, fed, and cared for properly, to ensure an acceptable level of well-being.

Animal-rights activists consider pet ownership to be a form of slavery. In their Brave New World there would be no more cats, dogs, fish, hamsters, bunnies, budgies, or other pets. In fact, the shocking kill-rate at PETA’s “shelter” confirms that it prefers to euthanize pets rather than find new homes for them, despite receiving more than $50 million annually from well-meaning donors.

Animals for Entertainment

Zoos, circuses, racetracks and other activities that use animals for entertainment are obliged, by law, to respect the welfare of their animals, ensuring they receive appropriate nutrition, housing and care.

Animal-rights activists, by contrast, want to ban all such activities. If they have their way, there will be no more animals in circuses, no more horse-back riding or dog shows, not even zoos that support breeding programs for endangered species. If giant panda conservation had been in PETA's hands rather than those of the Chinese government, it would probably be extinct by now.

Animals for Medical Research

The efforts of animal-welfare advocates ensure the responsible care of animals used for medical research. The “3-Rs” require that researchers “Replace” animals with other techniques when possible, “Reduce” the number of animals used to the minimum required to achieve their objectives, and “Refine” experiments to minimize suffering. Experiments using animals must be justified to show that the benefits could not be obtained otherwise.

Animal-rights activists want to ban any use of animals for medical research, no matter the benefits. To understand the implications of this position, consider that, according to the Foundation for Biomedical Research, “Animal research has played a vital role in virtually every major medical advance of the last century - for both human and veterinary health. From antibiotics to blood transfusions, from dialysis to organ transplantation, from vaccinations to chemotherapy, bypass surgery and joint replacement, practically every present-day protocol for the prevention, treatment, cure and control of disease, pain and suffering is based on knowledge attained through research with lab animals.” This does not impress animal-rights activists. According to PETA’s founder Ingrid Newkirk, “Even if animal research produced a cure for AIDS, we’d be against it.”

Animals at Work

People have long used animals for all sorts of work: horses and oxen pull loads and plow fields; pigs root out truffles; service dogs help a range of people in need while others pull sleds and sniff out bombs; and now, falcons are taking down intrusive drones. Most people who work with animals care about their partners and provide them with excellent care, and these animal-welfare concerns are increasingly codified in regulations.

Animal-rights activists seek to end this important relationship that humans have long enjoyed with animals.

Bottom line: while “animal welfare” recognizes that animals enrich our lives in many more ways than we usually consider, “animal rights” denies that humans have any right to use animals for our own ends.

Groups like PETA blur this distinction by showing extreme examples of animal abuse in their campaigns. Their goal is not to improve the treatment of animals we use. It is to end all animal use completely.

"Fur farms in the U.S. are the only sector of animal agriculture unregulated by the federal government," charges People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. And it's no throwaway statement either, making it onto PETA's list of Nine Shocking Fur Facts. When presented with no context, the casual reader will conclude that US fur farming is unregulated, period. But this could not be further from the truth.

The trick employed by PETA here relies on the fact that most readers will only see "unregulated by the government", and not even register the word "federal".

In common with all livestock in the US, almost every aspect of furbearers' lives comes under the jurisdiction of state departments of agriculture, not the federal government. State departments of agriculture are, of course, still government bodies, and love regulating just as much as the federal government. So are fur farms regulated by government? You bet they are, but - like most of animal agriculture - mostly by state and municipal governments.

Where the federal government does get involved in livestock production is in regulating the slaughter of animals raised for food, because there are human health concerns. Since farmed mink and fox are not produced or sold for human consumption, their production (including euthanasia) is mostly the responsibility of state governments.

That said, it's still not true to say that fur farms are completely exempt from federal regulation. While the federal government largely delegates implementation of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act to states, these are still federal laws, and fur farms must comply just like any other livestock operation.

Working with Government

Some opponents of fur take a different tack when trying to create the impression that US fur farming is unregulated. Fur farms, they say, just follow standards developed by the industry itself - a case of the fox guarding the chicken coop. While it's true that the industry places great importance on its own standards, that does not mean that farmers can do whatever they want.

First, it's important to understand that having industry standards is totally normal. In American agriculture, fur farmers were pioneers in developing such standards, but today every livestock sector has them. They have some important functions.

Standards are a basic tool for an industry that is committed to policing itself. This relieves some of the burden on government which typically does not have the resources to conduct regular inspections of every small farm, and may visit only when a complaint has been filed.

Standards also help farmers improve their operations because they incorporate the findings of research in areas where the industry is the recognized authority. In the case of fur farming, these include nutrition, housing and disease control (bio-security).

Standards also provide a buffer against attempts - for example by animal activist groups - to introduce arbitrary regulations that are based on ideology rather than scientific research.

However, the important point here is that industry standards are not alternatives to government regulations. Rather, they complement and build on them. This is why regulations governing livestock farming typically evolve through consultation between government and industry stakeholders, while taking advice from independent experts.

Animal-Welfare Statutes

A good example of how this works is in the area of animal welfare. Animal-welfare statutes are many and varied, covering everything from mistreatment and neglect, to intentional cruelty. Such statutes, however, can be short on specifics; it is neither possible nor desirable to regulate every scenario that might face every kind of animal. So this is an area where specific industry standards – for example concerning nutrition and housing – can complement and build on more general government statutes.

Thus, in the case of mink farms, industry association Fur Commission USA (FCUSA) has a certification program which includes, among many other requirements, a minimum size for mink pens. By setting this standard, and enforcing it through inspections by independent veterinarians, the industry complements more general government animal-welfare statutes.

Euthanasia is another example. Again, rather than developing statutes from scratch for every kind of livestock, states refer to recommendations of the American Veterinary Medical Association in its AVMA Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals. FCUSA takes the same recommendations on euthanasia and incorporates them in its industry standards. In other words, while it can be said that the industry "sets its own standards" on euthanasia, these standards are, in fact, based on the same recognized authority as states rely on; they effectively respect state statutes while adapting them to the specific characteristics and needs of fur farming.

In summary, US fur farms are regulated just like any other livestock sector, except that they are not subject to federal regulations for food animals. And industry standards are not alternatives to state statutes; they interpret and complement them. Therefore, PETA's "shocking" assertion that fur farming is "unregulated by the federal government" is as meaningful as saying, "Michael Jordan doesn't wear Under Armor shoes!" Of course he doesn't. He wears Nike.

The world is changing and, with it, our approach to consumption. As the impact of global warming worsens, many consumers are rethinking what they buy, and how much of it. "Local", "organic" and "minimalism" are all buzzwords many of us are drawn to, and some people question the need to eat animals, or wear leather and fur. Where does that leave us with animal use?

The use of animals is an ethical dilemma that many people question, but most people agree that if animals are well-treated, they are not in danger of becoming extinct, none of the animal is wasted, and the animal is put to good use, then it is acceptable for us to use and consume them.

SEE ALSO: WHY FUR IS THE ETHICAL CLOTHING CHOICE

Animal use is an integral part of many people’s lives, and is linked to essential products in our everyday life, such as medication, food, and clothing. Animals are used in medical testing in order to find cures to life-threatening diseases. We eat animals and while some people question the need to do this, there is plenty of evidence it can be done without harm to our planet. In fact, lots of land is better suited for pasture than for cultivation. And remember that animal manure is used to replenish the soil to grow crops. But if we are concerned about possible impacts, a small reduction in the amount of meat we consume – and waste – can go a long way. And lastly, we wear many types of animal products in order to protect ourselves from the elements. Fashion may not be essential, but clothing is. The need to keep warm in cold weather is a matter of life and death.

If you live in a cold country, you’ll need clothing that can protect you from the elements, and your choices should involve leather, fur, and other animal products. Why? Because there are no viable alternatives.

If we really care about the environment (and we all should because nothing else matters if we don't have water and food and clean air), we will want to buy sustainable fashion products that use production processes that are not too harmful to the environment, that are long-lasting, and that are biodegradable. That is exactly what animal skins are. Yes, they aren’t perfect; leathers and furs use chemicals in their processing and finishing (like all other textiles), and sometimes the farming has an environmental impact. But when you consider how long a good fur coat or high-quality leather bag lasts, you’ll realize that the environmental damage is minimal compared to the lifespan of the item.

So here they are, the five reasons why we must all wear leather and fur, and these reasons all point to the fact that there are simply no viable alternatives.

1. There are no alternatives that are biodegradable. The synthetic alternatives to fur and leather take much longer to biodegrade (50 years for treated leather vs. 500+ years for pleather), and even when they have “biodegraded”, there are still remains of the plastic particles in the soil, which we are now finding in our oceans and inside fish. Truth About Fur is in the process of conducting an experiment to prove that real fur biodegrades much faster than “faux”, and the results are more dramatic than even we expected.

2. There are no alternatives that are sustainable. Synthetics are made from petroleum by-products. You probably know that petroleum is not a renewable resource. The problems caused by the extraction and transport of petroleum are only a part of the issue, let’s not get started on the political issues (read: wars) that are caused by petroleum. Animals are a renewable, sustainable resource. (Actually, wool, down, and cashmere and other similar materials are sustainable, so these are certainly viable alternatives when it comes to winter coats. But the animal rights activists are against those, too, since they come from animals. Usually a sensible winter wardrobe would combine fur, leather, down, wool, and cashmere – you’ll never be cold.)

3. There are no alternatives that are as long-lasting. While a fake fur or leather jacket may be sitting in a landfill for a few hundred years longer than its real counterpart, that doesn't mean it is longer lasting in a fashion perspective. When well cared for, fur and leather items can last for decades, but fake leather and fur hardly do the same. Both look worn out much faster (and not in a cool way – like worn out leather), and they also don't maintain their warmth or waterproof qualities. You don’t find many fake leather bags being handed down from one generation to the next, do you?

4. There are no alternatives that are as environment-friendly. The points above do a good job of making this argument, but we can add to this by talking about the processing. Yes, leather and fur require chemicals for processing (leather requiring more than fur as you need to remove the hairs from leather, whereas with fur you are aiming to protect them). But two important things to consider here are that (1) the chemicals used to “dress” furs are really quite benign, e.g., alum salts (which are sold in the pharmacy to add to your bath water for sore muscles), and (2), the longevity of leather and fur items means that the chemicals per wear are much less than a synthetic alternative. Your leather bag or fur coat may have used chemicals in its production, but the fact that it lasts you 30 years makes it a more environment-friendly option than the synthetic version, made from a non-renewable resource that requires chemicals in its processing, which then looks tatty after two seasons. Another important thing to consider is that no synthetic material looks good in its natural state, while fur is frequently used in its natural state (meaning its natural colours), reducing the need for bleaches and dyes.

5. There are no alternatives that are as safe. We’ve yet to fully understand the bodily harm coming from wearing synthetics, but there’s a great deal of research that shows that synthetic materials may contribute to health issues such as infertility, respiratory diseases, and cancer. Why take the risk when there are natural alternatives?

If you truly care about the planet and its inhabitants, you’ll make consumption decisions based on what’s best for us all. You might refuse to eat animals or watch them being used as entertainment, but it is impossible to deny that synthetic clothing is causing irreparable harm to our planet. Choose materials that are sustainable, long-lasting, and biodegradable. Choose fur and leather because there are no viable alternatives.

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