Ann Arbor, Michigan just made history by becoming the first city in the entire Midwestern United States to completely ban the sale of newly made fur products -- for which animals are confined, tortured, neglected, and ultimately slaughtered.
We are calling on three more midwestern cities to follow suit. Sign the petition joining us in asking Chicago, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee to ban the sale of any new fur products!
Chicago is the most populous city in the Midwest, meaning a ban on fur would cut deeply into fur demand. Minneapolis has a pending ordinance banning the sale of fur products. And Milwaukee, Wisconsin is in a state that is another huge producer of fur -- and, like Michigan, many mink fur farms there have experienced dangerous COVID-19 outbreaks amongst their animals. These three cities MUST take a page out of Ann Arbor's book, for the welfare of animals and people alike, and ban the sale of any newly made fur products!
Besides the obvious and prescient issue that fur farms have been found to be hotbeds of COVID-19, a disease that began in animals and moved onto ravaging people, fur farming and production are abhorrently, unforgivably cruel.
In order to get the superfluous fur items that those with the means would pay wild amounts of money for -- coats, gloves, hats, scarves, slippers, and more -- animals such as mink and foxes go through what can only be described as their own layers of hell. Multiple studies have shown severe animal health problems are synonymous with the fur industry. The physical and behavioral issues are haunting -- animals born into filthy, tight cages are crowded together. They become wounded in accidents or fights, and their wounds, missing limbs, and infections go widely untreated. Their remaining limbs often become bent from being crushed into uncomfortable positions for long periods of time. This completely unnatural setting leads to behaviors like self mutilation, cannibalism of fellow dead animals, and stress-related behaviors like pacing, circling, or depression creating a sort of comatose withdrawal from life itself.
And that is just what the animals go through when they are alive. To harvest their skin and fur, people stoop to the lowest, most gruesome methods -- these poor babies are gassed, their necks broken, or they are electrocuted with devices inserted into their anuses or genitals. These unreliable methods often leave these animals alive but in immeasurable pain as they are skinned alive.
Cities and states across the nation are recognizing that this cruelty will no longer be tolerated by consumers and passing their own fur bans. It's time the Midwest, where much of the United States' fur is produced, get on board. Sign the petition demanding that Chicago, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee ban the sale of fur products!
