Science or Politics?
European Commission Receives Controversial Fur-Farming Report

Special to FCUSA by Simon Ward

A REPORT ON ANIMAL WELFARE on European fur farms has provoked accusations that a key advisory committee to the European Commission has subverted animal husbandry science in favor of a political agenda hostile to modern livestock farming.

In response to pressure from animal rights groups, a host of European livestock industries, among them fur farming, have come under increased scrutiny, with particular attention to animal welfare.

Against this backdrop, in 1999 the European Commission announced it would add to the already considerable body of fur farming regulations(1) by preparing a fur farming directive, and asked members of the European Union to refrain from passing national bills until this work had been completed.

For fur's opponents, however, this was an incentive to pressure national governments into pushing through restrictive legislation in case the Commission's directive was not to their liking. Most notably, in 2000 they got the UK to ban all fur farming in England and Wales from 2003, on the spurious ground of "public morality".(2)

Meanwhile, the report of the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare (SCAHAW), that would advise the Commission in developing its directive, was anxiously awaited by thousands of fur farmers across the Union. Would it confirm their role as legitimate members of the agricultural community with a secure future, or would opponents of animal ag hijack the process to threaten their livelihoods further?

In December the SCAHAW report was finally published, fanning the industry's fears. While the bulk of the 211-page report is an objective and authoritative body of work, in the final drafting stage it took on a critical tone towards fur farming that the industry's opponents will surely try to exploit.

Working Group

On being asked by the Commission to compile its report, SCAHAW delegated the drafting task to a Working Group of eight scientists with expertise in furbearer welfare. In light of what subsequently happened to the report, it is worth underlining that the Working Group was chosen by SCAHAW and chaired by a SCAHAW member.

One and a half years later, in June 2001, the draft went to a SCAHAW subcommittee for review. Without consulting with the Working Group, the subcommittee applied their red pens liberally to the conclusions, recommendations and executive summary, and submitted their version to the next meeting of SCAHAW in December. The edited report was adopted and shortly after published as The Welfare of Animals Kept for Fur Production.

Six of the eight scientists who had worked so hard on the draft were appalled by what they saw.

In a joint letter of protest four pages long and itemizing no fewer than 43 causes of concern, they described the final report as being "unlike the report we made in some crucial and major points" containing "several errors of fact which are, to be frank, simply embarrassing." These included the fallacy that nursing sickness is a problem on mink farms, the myth that some strains of mink suffer from genetic disorders resulting in blindness, and the extraordinary assertion that fur farming has been banned in the Netherlands. These errors could "easily ... have been avoided" if the subcommittee had consulted with the Working Group, but instead it had "compromised the scientific quality of the final report."

But their criticism was not limited to factual errors. They accused SCAHAW of transforming an impartial scientific review into an attack on fur farming, removing positive comments about the industry and adding hostile comments without scientific data to support them.

"Overall, we feel that the Committee has chosen to focus only on a few examples showing welfare problems ... and that [the] Committee has chosen to downplay the vast amount of studies showing positive aspects of welfare," they wrote.

Three aspects of the final report were singled out for particular attention. "First, it seems to have become politically slanted against fur farming, especially mink farming. Second, large numbers of references have been removed. Third, it contains several errors of fact or interpretation, some of which are potentially important for animal welfare, and others of which are so ridiculous that they compromise the report's credibility."

"The chapter on mink welfare, and its conclusions, have been changed dramatically, with a consistent elimination of positive welfare aspects of mink farming, and additions of text unknown to the Working Group (all negative towards mink farming, and with no references)."

In closing, they urged SCAHAW to withdraw the report and ask the subcommittee "to do a more objective job based on the scientific evidence." If SCAHAW opted to stand by the report, the protesters asked that their names be dissociated from it.

A "Must Read"

"These scientists spent almost two years working on a project of enormous potential importance to the industry," says Teresa Platt, executive director of FCUSA. "For the fruits of their efforts to be manipulated for someone's idea of gain is a travesty. Their complaint is a ‘must read' for everyone who believes in the role of science in animal husbandry."

What had gone wrong?

Inevitably, the focus of attention has been on the subcommittee, two key members of which are known for their antipathy to fur farming: chairman Prof. Per Jensen of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and vice-chairman Prof. Donald Broom of the University of Cambridge, UK.(3)

To illustrate their apparent influence on the final report, observers have pointed to the inclusion of two criticisms of fur farm animal welfare commonly espoused by opponents of fur: that farmed mink need to be able to swim, and that farmed foxes should be able to exercise an instinct to dig, not possible in wire-mesh cages. The Working Group had found no scientific evidence that either factor had a significant effect on the animals' well-being or stress level, but Jensen and Broom are known to feel otherwise.(4)

What Now?

What happens next is anyone's guess.

No rules have been broken, since SCAHAW was responsible for the final report, not the Working Group. In an Erratum appended to the report on Feb. 5, SCAHAW also paid lip service to the Working Group's protest by removing the most egregious errors and adding the following disclaimer: "The Scientific Committee is solely responsible for the final text, including the conclusions and recommendations and the members of the working group may therefore not necessarily agree with all parts of the report."

The Commission may now simply take the report as the basis for issuing a fur farm directive, but the industry is making sure the Commission is aware of the report's flaws.

The European Fur Breeders' Association has called the report "more political than scientific."(5) Denmark, which produces more than 40% of the world's mink, and Finland, the world's largest fox producer, have also lodged complaints.

"The conclusions and recommendations in the report are strongly influenced by political rather than scientific considerations," said Copenhagen Fur Center spokesman Sander Jacobsen.(6) While the Working Group concluded that "the welfare of mink is reasonably good, at least compared with other intensively farmed animals," the final report has some added conclusions "which will cause great problems to the trade, and which are not based on renewed scientific evidence."

The industry's task now is "to ensure that this political and therefore untrustworthy EU report, will not decisively lay the groundwork for further work in the EU."

KEY RESOURCES:

The Welfare of Animals Kept for Fur report adopted by SCAHAW, December 2001. (PDF format)

Erratum to The Welfare of Animals Kept for Fur, February 2002. (PDF format)

Full text of the letter of protest to SCAHAW by six members of the Working Group, March 2002.

NOTES:

(1) Fur farming in the EU is already regulated by Directive 98/58; Commission Decision of Dec. 17, 1999; Directive 93/119; and Regulation 827/68. Furthermore, the Council of Europe has adopted a Recommendation concerning fur animals, revised in 1999, and the European Fur Breeders Association has adopted a code of practice based on the Recommendation.
(2) The ban will become law only if compensation for farmers can be agreed. See UK Government Still Fuzzy on Morals, Ethics, FCUSA commentary, June 13, 2000.
(3) "Both do not sympathize with fur farming," says Copenhagen Fur Center spokesman Sander Jacobsen, "Untrustworthy EU Report on Fur Farming", CFC Customer Magazine, January 2002. Broom's attitude is clearly conveyed in a paper presented to a conference on Ethics and Animal Welfare in Stockholm, May 2001, in which he states: "Major changes in mink housing system design would be needed in order to solve these serious welfare problems as the minor changes tried so far in experimental studies do not seem to provide for the animals' needs and do not eliminate the signs of poor welfare." "... it would be difficult to make changes in housing and management substantial enough for fox welfare on farms to be good." He prefaces these conclusions by saying that "in many EU member states, many people do not find it acceptable to kill animals for their skins alone. Hence fur farming is not viewed as equivalent to farming animals for meat, milk or eggs. The killing of wild animals for their fur is also the subject of disapproval for this reason." Broom has written two reviews on mink and fox welfare respectively, both commissioned by Respect for Animals, a UK animal rights group. He has not actually undertaken any fur animal research himself.
(4) "EU issues controversial report on fur farming", Helsingin Sanomat (Finland's largest newspaper), Jan. 8, 2002.
(5) "EU fur farming report conveys more political than scientific motives," European Fur Breeders' Association press release, Jan. 7, 2002.
(6) "Untrustworthy EU Report on Fur Farming", CFC Customer Magazine, January 2002.

For further information contact: Teresa Platt, Executive Director, Fur Commission USA, PMB 506, 826 Orange Avenue, Coronado, CA 92118-2698 USA, (619) 575-0139, (619) 575-5578/fax, furfarmers@aol.com, www.furcommission.com.

To take a cyber-tour of a fur farm, visit Fur Commission USA's Fur on Film at http://www.furcommission.com/video/index.htm

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