FOUR PAWS and fellow members of the Fur Free Alliance handed over more than 880 thousand signatures to Italy’s G20 delegation calling for urgent global action on fur farming at the upcoming G20 Summit in Rome later this month.  

COVID-19 has spread through hundreds of mink fur farms worldwide and we need world leaders to stop, listen and end the high-risk practise of fur farming once and for all - to protect public and animal health. 

Mink are highly susceptible to COVID-19, which spreads rapidly in intensive fur farms that often breed many thousands of animals in cramped, unhygienic and stressful conditions. Since April 2020, over 440 mink fur farms have been affected with coronavirus in 12 countries in Europe and North America, millions of mink have been infected and culled as a result, and numbers continue to rise. 

Health authorities such as the World Health Organisation have warned mink fur farms are a COVID-19 risk to humans and wildlife, but despite this, most fur-producing countries have allowed intensive mink breeding operations to continue despite serious concerns about public health risks.  

The G20 Summit in Rome is the ideal opportunity for global leaders to acknowledge the risks posed by fur farming and to take urgent action to end the practice.

On behalf of supporters around the world, we call on all fur-producing countries to take urgent action to shut down this dying industry and urge G20 leaders to publicly acknowledge that fur farming must end. Given the immense animal suffering on intensive fur farms and the very real threat of virus mutations and animal-to-human transmission, now is the time to put fur farming to the history books where it belongs. 

With the World Health Summit also happening later this week, it couldn’t be a more suitable time to be talking about better pandemic prevention plans. If you want to learn more about our soon to be published Future Study report, you can attend our expert panel session happening today – register below.