Russia says it is developing a Covid-19 vaccine for mink and CATS after boasting it has made first treatment for humans

• A vaccine for animals is being worked on and is expected to be tested in autumn 
• Russia has around 100 fur farms specialising in mink for the large fur industry  
• Vladimir Putin hailed the country’s human vaccine as a world beater 

russian mink fur farms – Google Search

russian mink fur farms – Google Search

Russia says it is developing a new Covid-19 vaccine to protect mink in its vast fur farms, as well as domestic cats. 

Rosselkhoznadzor, Russia’s veterinary watchdog, announced it is working on a vaccine for animals that is expected to be tested in the autumn.

This follows cases of domestic cats with Covid-19 in Moscow and Tyumen.

‘We are working on the creation of a vaccine for animals against the new coronavirus infection,’ said the organisation’s head Sergey Dankvert.

‘The vaccine is needed primarily for mink,’ he said.

russian mink fur farms – Google Search

russian mink fur farms – Google Search

russian mink fur farms – Google Search

Above – the reality of fur farming in Russia.

‘They quickly transmit the virus to each other.’

A case was reported of a mink infecting a human in the Netherlands.

Russia has around 100 fur farms specialising in mink farming for its large fur industry.

‘People will want to vaccinate pets as well – for example, cats that become infected with a new coronavirus infection,’ he said.

This comes after Russia claims that the West is actively seeking to poach the scientists behind its controversial new Covid-19 vaccine.  

The head of Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Professor Alexander Gintsburg, the key scientist behind the human vaccine hailed by Vladimir Putin as a world beater, said in several interviews that the ‘jealous’ West was seeking to ‘buy out’ the top brains in his team.

Any American or European university can only dream of having such researchers,’ he said.

‘And they are seeking to lure them away.

‘But they will not be able to.’

The team that made the Covid-19 vaccination had been together ten years, he said, claiming they were resisting lucrative approaches.

The rush to announce the Sputnik V vaccine – only tested on dozens of people – has been widely criticised in the West, and key figures inside Russia.

Russian health chiefs have been forced to make clear that it cannot be used on this under 18 or over 60 because tests have not been carried out on these age groups.

‘A large amount of additional work is certainly required,’ admitted Gintsburg, who is starting post-registration tests on 30,000 people.

Mass vaccination will start in around one month, it is expected.

But the head of Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s public health watchdog, Anna Popova, made clear that the country will not solely rely Gintsburg’s vaccine announced with such fanfare by the Kremlin last week when the drug was registered.

‘It is absolutely certain that each country, including the Russian Federation, should have several different vaccines. This is what we are doing today,’ she said. 

Where has all the money gone ? – Canadian taxpayers handing out millions to failing fur factory farms.

News from ‘Respect for Animals’, Nottingham, England.

Where’s the money gone? Canadian taxpayers are handing out MILLIONS to failing fur factory farms.

The financial crisis enveloping the fur trade has been closely monitored by Respect for Animals over recent years. North America’s fur trade has been particularly hit. Last year the North American Fur Auction (NAFA) had been taken over by Finnish fur group Saga Furs, having descended into near financial ruin. You can read the latest on Saga’s own troubles here: http://www.respectforanimals.org/desperate-saga-furs-moves-fur-auction-online-with-humiliating-results/ .

Now an in-depth report by Canadian news outlet CBC has revealed the astonishing extent of taxpayers’ money being wasted on failed attempt to prop up a cruel and unnecessary industry:

A CBC News analysis of bankruptcy and government records suggests that, since 2014, upwards of $100 million in provincial and federal money has been spent in Canada trying, often unsuccessfully, to keep individual mink farms afloat, or is tied up in loans by Crown agencies that will likely never be repaid.

The bulk of the money spent on the industry appears to have come through Agristability, a program jointly funded by the provinces and Ottawa that amounts to a disaster relief subsidy for farmers who suffer large income declines.

But so long and steep has been the fall of the mink sector that the bailouts dwarf what the industry is now worth. Last year, farms across Canada sold just $44 million worth of pelts, down from $254 million at the peak of the boom in 2013, according to Statistics Canada.

The precise amount of public money that’s been spent trying to rescue the mink industry after global prices took a nosedive in 2014 remains secret, however.

The federal Department of Agriculture refuses to release information on payments to the sector, even under access-to-information laws, citing among other things “international affairs” and “economic interests of certain government institutions.”

Not content with merely perpetuated a trade built upon inherent the suffering of animals, the remarkable actions of some fur farmers to seize profits was also disclosed.

The owners of a fur farm called Silver Hill had claimed that they had, over one March weekend, taken 20,000 mink from their cages and slaughtered them at their farm in western Prince Edward Island. The pelts were estimated to be worth up to $1 million to Asian fashion houses.

However, the fur farmers claimed that somehow all of those pelts had been ruined, meaning their income would suffer and their many creditors could not be paid. In a gruesome image of the fur industry’s environmental disregard, CBC reports that ‘looking for a way to dispose of the rotting pelts, the farm said they put the lot through a meat grinder and flushed it all down pipes and into the Gulf of St. Lawrence’.

Courts records, however, exposed the truth.  The pelts were not destroyed but were instead transported to a freezer off-island, ‘apparently away from the prying eyes of creditors’.

Unsurprisingly this farm has received lavishly large sums of public money — up to $8 million in government loans and bailout payments.

This is a damning indictment of the fur industry and another example of why taxpayer money should not be used to prop up one of the world’s most inhumane industries. Fur factory farming should be allowed to die out and farmers supported to diversify into sustainable agriculture that does not rely upon terrible conditions for its profit margins.

It is clear that the Canadian fur factory industry is financial unviable and a disastrous failure for animals, unable to meet even the most basic standards of animal welfare. Respect for Animals hopes that Canada soon joins the UK and many other countries by introducing a fur farm ban once and for all.

• You can read the CBC report here
• Read more about the fur trade’s financial woes here

August news from ‘Respect for Animals’, Nottingham, England.

Over 1 million mink killed in the Netherlands due to coronavirus outbreak More than 1.1 million mink have been killed on 26 Dutch farms that have recorded outbreaks of Covid-19 amongst workers and animals, according to the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority. The government also announced that mink at a 27th farm also were infected and all mink would be killed. The Netherlands, which has some 160 mink farms, is the world’s fourth-biggest producer of the prized fur after Denmark, China and Poland, according to Wim Verhagen, director of the Dutch federation of fur farmers. Fur farming is in the rocess of being phased out in Holland, and Respect for Animals has joined the Fur Free Alliance in strongly urging authorities to not allow the infected farms to re-open. Covid-19 is now also on mink farms in Spain Spain has ordered the slaughter of nearly 100,000 mink on a farm as coronavirus wreaks havoc in the European fur farming industry, highlighting the terrible conditions embedded in fur factory farming. Officials said it was not completely clear if “transmission was possible from animals to humans and vice versa” The outbreak at the Spanish mink farm near La Puebla de Valverde, a village of 500 people, was discovered after seven of the 14 employees, including the owner, tested positive in late May, said Joaquín Olona, regional chief of agriculture and environment. Two other employees got infected even after the operation was shut down. More than 92,000 minks were ordered killed at the farm in the Aragon region of northeastern Spain, with nine out of 10 animals estimated to have contracted the virus. Spain has 38 active mink breeding operations, most of them in northwestern Galicia. Not a single mink left in Estonian fur farms   The Estonian animal advocacy organization Loomus, colleagues of Respect for Animals in the Fur Free Alliance,has reported that, according to assurances from the Ministry of Rural Affairs and a verification visit by Veterinary and Food Board, Estonia does not have a single mink farm active and running. The ministry said that due to the market situation, Estonia’s largest mink farm has halted its farming of minks at the end of 2019. In 2016, Estonia’s fur farms held about 130,000 American mink. Mark Glover, Campaigns Director for Respect for Animals, said: “Fur farming is unsustainable, both economically and environmentally, while perpetuating inherently cruel levels of animal welfare. Loomus deserve our sincere thanks for their sterling work against the fur trade and we support their continued efforts to ensure fur farming ends for ever in Estonia.” Ireland: fur farming ban included in Programme For Government document Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party have formed a new Irish government, with all three parties agreeing on a programme of government. Respect for Animals is delighted that the document includes a firm commitment to end fur farming in Ireland as a matter of urgency. The document, known as “Our Shared Future,” has been formally approved, with a new Prime Minister, or Taoiseach, and a new Agriculture minister now confirmed. Here is the key part of the document in relation to fur farming: • Immediately prioritise the drafting of legislation for the phasing out of fur-farming, publishing legislation in this area as soon as possible. The moment when fur farming is finally banned in Ireland is now much closer! The Cabinet agreed in July last year to produce legislation to finally end fur farming in the country. This came after a strong campaign in which Respect for Animals was closely involved, along with animal protection groups NARA and ISPCA. However, the legislation has been delayed, not least because of issues faced by the Irish government (and DAFM in particular) due to the challenges of Brexit, a snap general election- which transformed the political landscape- and, of course, the current coronavirus crisis. There are currently three fur farms in Ireland, with around 190,000 mink housed in cages and factory farm conditions. Last month, a spokesperson told us: DAFM is in the process of preparing a Bill to provide for the phased introduction of a ban on fur farming which will include a prohibition on mink farming. Along with animal welfare considerations, social and economic aspects in relation to the industry need to be taken into account, provide for an orderly wind down of the sector and allow time for employees to find alternative opportunities. The necessary work to prepare the appropriate legislation is ongoing within the Department. It is not envisaged that the Covid-19 pandemic will have any effect on this process.   News from Canada: seals and mink farms   It is known around the world as one of the most shocking scenes of bloodshed, a painful reminder of the bloody impact of the fur industry, but the Canadian seal hunt has seen a huge drop in the number of seals killed with the majority of the commercial hunt being closed. This is due to the impact of Covid-19. According to preliminary figures on the website of Canada’s Department for Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), only 388 seals have been reported killed to date in this year’s hunt in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, which would usually run from mid-April through late May. In all of 2019, the number of seals killed numbered 32,071. While still a significant number, this was only 8% of the 2019 quota of 400,000. This year’s numbers represent an even greater overall reduction. Canada’s mink farms are also facing scrutiny. The financial crisis enveloping the fur trade has been closely monitored by Respect for Animals over recent years. North America’s fur trade has been particularly hit. Last year the North American Fur Auction (NAFA) had been taken over by Finnish fur group Saga Furs, having descended into near financial ruin. Now an in-depth report by Canadian news outlet CBC has revealed the astonishing extent of taxpayers’ money being wasted on failed attempt to prop up a cruel and unnecessary industry: Analysis of bankruptcy and government records suggests that, since 2014, over $100 million in provincial and federal money has been spent in Canada, often unsuccessfully, to keep individual mink farms afloat, or is tied up in loans that will likely never be repaid. So long and steep has been the fall of the mink sector that the bailouts dwarf what the industry is now worth. Last year, farms across Canada sold just $44 million worth of pelts, down from $254 million in 2013, according to Statistics Canada. The precise amount of public money that’s been spent trying to rescue the mink industry after global prices took a nosedive in 2014 remains secret, however. The federal Department of Agriculture refuses to release information on payments to the sector, even under access-to-information laws, citing among other things “international affairs” and “economic interests of certain government institutions.” This is a damning indictment of the fur industry and another example of why taxpayer money should not be used to prop up one of the world’s most inhumane industries. Fur factory farming should be allowed to die out and farmers supported to diversify into sustainable agriculture that does not rely upon terrible conditions for its profit margins. It is clear that the Canadian fur factory industry is financial unviable and a disastrous failure for animals, unable to meet even the most basic standards of animal welfare. Respect for Animals hopes that Canada soon joins the UK and many other countries by introducing a fur farm ban once and for all. Fur Trade’s Online Fur Auction Disaster Saga Furs, the major fur auction house owned by the Finnish fur industry, has published its half yearly report, with a decrease in sales of over 50%. In desperation for working capital, Saga had applied for a loan guarantee for the covid-19 pandemic from Finnvera, the state-owned Finnish financing company, but this request was rejected. In May, the company decided to suspend pre-financing for producers, a financial disaster for fur farmers, citing ‘liquidity tightening’. Saga Furs had held its previous fur auction online, having been forced to abandon staging the usual auction due to the global coronavirus crisis.   In late March, the online auction tried to sell the skins of millions of animals raised in terrible factory farm conditions, including 3559808 mink, 537593 fox, 56019 finnraccoon and 25152 sable. The online stream showed skins of foxes and finnraccoon constantly going unsold. Mink furs sold at higher rates but at dismally low prices as the auction continues. The Kopenhagen Fur auction followed in April with similar results. Many furs were not even made available and those that did sold were sold below the cost of production. Another Saga auction began in early July with over 4 million mink skins offered This is a financial catastrophe for the fur industry and means many fur farms are in a precarious economic position. Respect for Animals encourages fur farmers to abandon the morally and financially bankrupt fur industry for good. Fur Trade Blog Calls Covid-19 a ‘silver lining’       The dire outlook for the fur trade contrasts sharply with the attitude recently expressed in a fur industry propaganda blog, which shockingly described the coronavirus crisis as a ‘small silver lining’ and ‘an opportunity’ for the fur trade, with animal protection organisations unable to mount effective campaigns. Please return the enclosed donation form to help prove them wrong.

Ask your MP to sign EDM 267   (UK citizens) The import and sale of fur is allowed even though the main ways fur is obtained, including fur farming, are banned in Britain. The law must change.  Killing animals just for their fur is cruel and barbaric, and we must stop funding it by banning imports of real fur immediately. Fur import bans have been successfully implemented elsewhere. There is an EU-wide ban on the import of domestic cat and dog fur and California is banning the sale of real fur. The UK should take a lead and become the first country in the world to ban fur imports. We have over 100 MPs already, but we need much more to make a difference for animals. Please contact your representative and ask them to back our calls for a Fur Free UK by signing Early Day Motion 267.

Sorry folks but with Venus away I was hoping to keep things under some kind of control.  But over the last few days I have personally had a really bad hit with my Multiple Sclerosis (MS) – and what with the heat this week in Europe, it just shut me down completely.  But things are a little better today and so I will try and publish a few things.  This story is just one of thousands which relate to animals being kept and abused for their fur.

Then you get crass statements from the BFTA stating that there are individual cases like this; but with rigorous checks cases are dealt with swiftly.  A typical response from an industry which supports animal abuse.

This incident was in Finland, but we fully support Claire Bass of the Humane Society International/UK, when she says “As long as the UK sells fur from overseas, we are complicit in this horrendous cruelty.

“We need a UK fur sales ban now.”

Fully agree Claire, and we will continue (with most people) to fight to get one.

Fur farmers and traders – dealers in animal abuse and untold suffering; we will expose them whenever we can.

All photographs are reproduced courtesy of the Mirror newspaper.

Regards Mark

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/caged-raccoon-dog-impaled-through-22426297?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

Foxes and mink have been found in appalling conditions on fur farms in Finland, which exports millions of pounds of fur products to the UK.

Investigators found animals in tiny cages suffering from ear infections and damaged eyes, and with ears and limbs bitten off.

One raccoon dog had even been impaled through the eye and head by a protruding part of his cage.

Kristo Muurimaa is an investigator for the Finish charity Oikeutta Elaimille, who visited farms undercover.

He said: “I have got used to seeing animals unable to move more than a few feet, the stench, the continuous screaming and the rattling sound of wire cages under thousands of tiny paws.

“But this raccoon dog pierced through the eye, hanging there unable to move, was something I’ve never seen before.

“This industry needs to stop.”

Finland is Europe’s biggest producer of fox fur.

It electrocutes 1.9 million foxes, 1.04 million mink and 153,000 raccoon dogs every year.

Since 2000, when Britain banned fur farming, we have imported more than £14million of Finnish fur.

Claire Bass, of the Humane Society International/UK, said: “As long as the UK sells fur from overseas, we are complicit in this horrendous cruelty.

“We need a UK fur sales ban now.”

This month, the Daily Mirror launched its Fur Free Britain campaign.

The British Fur Trade Association said: “There will be individual cases where animals become ill or injured.

“Thanks to the rigorous checks in place, these cases will be dealt with swiftly.”

• To help us make Britain fur free sign this petition

Mirror petition wording:

Help make a fur-free Britain!

The government ordered the last UK fur farm to close its doors back in 2000, but now the UK is importing fur cruelty from overseas. The unnecessary suffering of animals for fur fashion is deplorable, whether the animal involved is a cat, a dog or a seal, whose fur is already banned from UK trade by EU regulations, or a coyote, a fox or a raccoon dog, whose fur is currently still allowed.

Opinion polls show continually high levels of public disapproval of fur, regardless of species – more than 80% believe that it’s unacceptable to buy and sell animal fur in the UK. We want to see an end to the cruel, unnecessary, outdated fur trade, and for Britain to lead the way as the world’s first fur-free nation!

Please add your name to our letter calling on the government not only to retain a UK import ban on cat, dog and seal, but also establish a sales ban to cover the pelts of all animals killed for their fur.

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/17/spain-to-cull-nearly-100000-mink-in-coronavirus-outbreak?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Tweet

 

A million mink culled in Netherlands and Spain amid Covid-19 fur farming havoc

 

Agriculture minister says origins of outbreak unclear after seven farm workers – and 87% of the mink – test positive

 

Spain has ordered the culling of nearly 100,000 mink on a farm and an estimated one million mink have already been culled on Dutch fur farms, as coronavirus wreaks havoc in the European fur farming industry.

Joaquin Olona, agriculture minister for the north-eastern Aragon region, said the cull would involve the slaughter of 92,700 mink which are prized for their pelts.

Officials suspect the virus first reached the farm through a worker who passed it on to the animals. But Olona said it was not completely clear if “transmission was possible from animals to humans and vice versa”.

Covid-19 infections are now reported to have spread to 24 Dutch fur farms, a fur industry source confirmed. A further outbreak reported on Friday, bringing the number to 25, appears related to a planned movement of mink pups to another location. Scientists believe the initial Covid-19 infections passed from two farm workers to the mink in April. Culling began shortly afterwards.

The Netherlands is the world’s fourth biggest fur farmer after China, Denmark and Poland. Spain is the seventh largest European producer.

In Denmark, Covid-19 has been confirmed on three mink farms.

 

The Spanish mink farm – in Puebla de Valverde, about 100km (60 miles) north-west of the coastal resort of Valencia – has been carefully monitored since 22 May after seven workers tested positive for Covid-19, Olona said.

Since then no animals have left the property, which is the only mink farm in Aragon.

Officials had carried out a string of tests which on 13 July showed that 87% of the mink were infected, prompting the decision to carry out a cull “to avoid the risk of human transmission”, Olona said.

‘There’s a direct relationship’: Brazil meat plants linked to spread of Covid-19

Read more

 

Dutch mink farming is due to be phased out by 2024 but there are calls for closures to speed up. The Dutch parliament adopted a motion last month from the Dutch Party for the Animals calling for faster shutdowns.

 

On Thursday, Humane Society International (HSI), the animal welfare NGO that collected the Dutch cull data, said Covid-19 infection risks, and the conditions in which mink are bred, meant more immediate action to end fur farming was needed.

 

Fur farms can potentially act as “reservoirs for coronaviruses, incubating pathogens transmissible to humans” and are “inherently cruel”, HSI Europe’s public affairs director, Joanna Swabe, said.

Mink are culled in the same way they are killed for fur, using carbon monoxide and dioxide gas. Culled fur does not enter the retail chain.  Swabe said gassing is a particularly cruel way to kill mink because they are semi-aquatic animals able to hold their breath for long periods. Recent Dutch video footage appears to show a mink that survived gassing being fished out of a container to be gassed again, she said.

 

Prior to the pandemic, HSI said its data showed fur farming was in decline globally, mainly due to falling demand and bans on the practice.

Data from leading Finnish fur auctioneer, Saga Furs, shows that at this year’s latest auction, which started on 29 June and ended last week, 4.9 million mink pelts were offered along with 900,000 long hair pelts from foxes and finnraccoons, but only about a fifth sold. Magnus Ljung, Saga Furs CEO, estimates the auction raised about £33m, and would have been worth £200m if all the skins had sold.

 

Ljung told the Guardian on Friday, however, that sales were picking up again as international borders reopen, particularly to China, and orders for next week now stand at about £5m.

A press release this month from Saga Furs said “changes in consumer demand caused by the global coronavirus pandemic had [had] a significant impact on the company’s business during the current period”. Ljung stated that auctioneers “firmly believe” in future demand for responsibly produced fur and that “organisational changes” being made now “will help us to operate more efficiently … [and] take us beyond this crisis phase.”

 

A number of countries have already banned fur farming including the UK (in 2000), Austria and Croatia. Slovakia, Norway and Belgium are phasing it out, like the Netherlands, and bans are under consideration in Ireland, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Ukraine and Estonia.

Major fashion brands, meanwhile, are going fur free. The most recent announcement came from the Prada Group in 2019. Jean Paul Gaultier went fur free in 2018, but said more recently that he might return if traceability improved. Other fur-free fashion houses include Michael Kors, Gucci, Armani and Hugo Boss.

 

Mette Lykke Nielsen, CEO of Fur Europe, hopes the issues can be resolved. “We know that it was people infected with Covid-19 that brought the virus into the farms in the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain [so] we believe that good biosecurity is the answer to prevent virus from entering farms again.”

 

Nielsen hopes that because fur is long-lasting and fully biodegradable, unlike many fast fashion items that risk ending up in landfill, the pandemic might boost fur demand. She pointed out that 100,000 people across Europe work in the fur sector, which supports farmers, dressing and dyeing companies, furriers and retail outlets.

Laura Moreno Ruiz, a WWF biodiversity officer, said Spain now has only 38 fur farms in the country, mostly in the northern region of Galicia, down from more than 300 in the 1980s. “The species is listed as an invasive alien species since 2011,” she said.

• Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.

 

 

 

 

Dutch MPs have voted to close all mink farms by the end of the year and pay compensation to fur farmers

Politicians in the Netherlands have voted in favour of closing the country’s mink farms by the end of the year after several outbreaks of coronavirus led to thousands of the animals being culled.  

At least two workers at mink farms in the Netherlands are believed to have been infected with coronavirus in what the World Health Organization said could be the first known cases of animal-to-human transmission of the virus.

Health authorities slaughtered more than 1,500 mink as a precaution this month after coronavirus surfaced in a handful of farms in the southern Netherlands.

The Labour Party and Party for Animals subsequently tabled a vote on banning mink farming, which passed this morning. The motion now has to be approved by the upper house of the Dutch government. 

If it passes the new law will hasten the closure of the country’s estimated 128 mink farms, which were due to be phased out by the end of 2023.

 

The animal rights charity, PETA, described the proposed ban as “common sense” and called on other mink farming nations such as China and Denmark to ban the trade.

“PETA hopes the Netherlands will be the first of many countries to see the writing on the wall and shut down cruel fur farms or risk being the source of the next pandemic,” said the charity’s director, Elisa Allen.

In a statement, Humane Society International urged the Dutch government to pass the motion to ban the country’s mink fur trade: “HSI urges the government to listen to parliament, act now to end cruel and dangerous fur farming for good.”

The Netherlands is not the only country making moves to reduce the trade in animals in the wake of coronavirus. China, where the outbreak began, has since banned the consumption of all wildlife and removed pangolin scales from a list of approved traditional medicines.

Pangolins are the most trafficked mammal in the world and scientists are investigating whether they may have played a role in the virus moving from animals to humans.

 

https://www.positive.news/environment/dutch-parliament-votes-to-end-mink-farming-following-covid-19-outbreak/#.XvUUdz2jrnI.twitter