The new pictures showing appalling conditions and severely injured, mentally distressed animals have been taken during the summer and fall 2019. The investigation proves that the fur industry has been unwilling to improve the conditions on their farms.  

According to Oikeutta eläimille, a Finnish animal rights organisation, the same problems can be seen in all of the farms. The animals spend all of their lives in small, barren, wire mesh battery cages. In these conditions they cannot follow the behavioural needs of wild carnivores. This leads to bad welfare and mental distress, even cannibalism.

Kristo Muurimaa, a photographer who participated in investigating some of the farms, says: “The fox and raccoon dog cubes had severe difficulties in walking on the wire floor, because their tiny legs would fall through the netting. We saw dead animals left to rot in the cages, as well as foxes with infected eyes swollen shut. We saw a mink with a huge flesh wound in its head, being cannibalised by cage mates while still alive.”

The pictures also reveal disgustingly filthy drinking water that the animals have to drink. In the wild, mink spend most of their time in swimming and diving, but on farms, this is the only water they see.