Tellus In Furs

Cats achieve their highest pleasure in lounging upon the most soft, comfortable bedding. What can be more appealing to the lazing feline than a pelt of fur? In this country, there is a misconception that the fur industry is dead, being wholly confined to a distant historical era like the one belonging to the Victorians. This is worlds away from reality and needs correcting, as it is now more important than ever to establish our own fur farming operations within Scotland. From the fresh gap in the global marketplace, our ideal environmental conditions, to the monumental economic benefits, the fur farming sector is an economic horn of plenty that our nation must firmly grasp and champion to the world.

Fur’s absence from our wardrobes is due to the uproar of activism throughout the 1900s, compounded by the material becoming unfavourable to consumer aesthetic desires. The past unfashionable nature of this now gorgeous material is the reason why the public gave their passive consent to the rolling out of restrictive legislation that crippled the then-waning fur farming industry, causing its eventual collapse and the decades-long disappearance of fur from the market. Even today, our media is replete with biased news coverage and emotive documentaries with an aim of maintaining a moral panic about non-existent issues in the fur industry. The talking points of anti-fur activists, and vested interests that back them, are so outdated, irrelevant, and stale that they can only use footage of barbaric fur farming practices in China, due to fur farms being outlawed throughout the United Kingdom since the year 2000.

Considering the overt propaganda and the myths it keeps alive, it is necessary I inform you of the present state of the world’s fur economy. The industry’s valuation has been notoriously difficult to estimate due to it being a highly fragmented sector of economic activity. However, a recent report commissioned by the International Fur Federation has valued the global fur industry at over £30 billion. This is a highly significant figure mirroring the value of the global Wi-Fi industry. The report goes onto stratify the figure, stating fur farming has an overall value of almost £6 billion and that the with great bulk of the total industry valuation comes from the retail sale of fur items, coming in at over £25 billion. This money is generated by the collective labour of over 1 million people worldwide.

The epicentre of the world’s fur trade is situated in Denmark, very close to home at our immediate geographic East. This nation was said to be Gaia’s largest producer of mink pelts, 40% total supply, with the pillowy-soft, gorgeously coloured material being Denmark’s third highest export, touting a value of £600 million. France is another fur farming nation, exporting just over £100 million worth of related exports in 2019, with other pelt producers within Europe being Finland, Italy, Poland, Greece and the Netherlands, all producing fur from various animals but mainly the American mink, Neovison vison. Outside of Europe, the biggest producers of fur are China, Canada and the United States. This industry is cherished by each nation’s treasury, as it contributes a fantastic source of income, proving that fur is still a globally popular material, with the British market being the notable exception.

Coronavirus lockdowns began in the UK during the early Spring of 2020, inducing our economy’s year-long torpor. In Denmark, this included the additional measure of destroying their prized fur industry. In November of last year, millions of mink had their lives ended prematurely as a safety precaution following coronavirus detection within a few Danish mink fur farms. Alongside the mass graves of the once valuable animals, the Danish government additionally ordered that all mink farms cease operation by 2021 in efforts to eliminate coronavirus transmission. Amongst farmers and industry leaders, there is unanimous agreement that this government diktat has irreversibly destroyed Denmark’s fur sector. Ultimately, the level of financial investment to revive this industry is unachievable, especially in the present economic conditions caused by lockdowns and the rock-bottom morale of those once involved in fur farming, with a Reuter’s report stating an past mink farmer remarked, ‘‘It stops here. We will never get the industry going again.’’ Following Denmark, coronavirus paranoia has beset the governments of France, Spain, and Sweden, all banning fur farming, with Poland also pledging to end their own fur operations on the grounds of ‘animal rights’.

There are many mistakes of history, the burning of the Library of Alexandria, the near-death of the Gaelic language and now we bear witness to one of the present day; the destruction of the European fur industry. This is tragic for them, but wonderful for us. Why? The damage delivered upon the UK economy through government-mandated lockdowns has topped at £251 billion and difficulties of our exit from the European Union is causing us to undergo soul-searching to find our place in the world. This place is in the fur industry. It is very easy to make such grand claims and simply recommend the building of a whole new economic sector from nothing, so I will detail the case for the establishment of a Scottish fur industry below.

Firstly, it is important to look at the structure of the Danish fur industry, which has been made available by Kopenhagan Furs, a mink farmers’ cooperative and the world’s largest auctioneering house specialising in the trade of fur pelts. A mink farm in Denmark is typically around 12,000 spacious sheds, each holding two to four individual mink, arranged in rows reaching a length of 200 feet. The ‘sheds’ are not simple wooden boxes, but technological living spaces capable of controlling light intensity and temperature to ensure a natural mating cycle for the mink. Mated in March, the mother mink birth four to five offspring around late April to early May. In cases of remarkably large litters, mink happily rear one another’s offspring. In July, immature mink are paired off by sex to ensure socialisation conducive to normal behavioural development and by the dog days of Summer, the new generation of mink reach maturity, thus ready to surrender their gorgeous coats. The very best specimens in both health and beauty being reserved for next year’s breeding.

Danish mink live a plush existence in their warm homes along with their carefully balanced, nutritious diet and pure water. You might be under the impression that the industry is over-compensating for the slander that is thrown around about them, but these measures are fundamental necessities to ensure high quality fur. If an animal lived a life of stress and misery, their hair would be thin, patchy, and dull. Therefore, to ensure a thick, luscious, brightly coloured pelt, they need to exist in a tailored heaven, as fur is a product that naturally rewards superlative care. This is reflected within the world-renowned quality of Danish mink fur, which is exclusively used to create the most upmarket clothing products on the global marketplace, regularly appearing on the runways of the world’s great fashion houses. To the layman, ‘‘fur is fur’’, but nothing compares to

‘purple label’, top-shelf fur from Denmark, which is as light as a cloud and as thick as cream. Considering this, it is perfectly understandable why the fashion industry is now in a panic concerning where they are going to source pelts for future clothing lines. Top quality fur was a niche Denmark occupied unchallenged, but the collapse of Danish fur farming has left an enormous, presently unfillable, gap in the market.

This is why Scotland must capture the open field of fur farming. If this country was to harbour the industry that has just been decimated in Denmark, we would immediately have a host of customers willing to buy our furred wares. Referring back to Kopenhagen Fur, I will repeat that it also operates an auction house for the fur that’s produced by Danish mink farms. It conducts five annual auctions within the nation’s capital city, each one overseeing the trade of 8 million pelts, individually yielding £225,629,300, over £2,500 a second, chalking up an annual revenue of £902,517,200 from pelt trading alone. Imagine all that money flowing into our country year upon year and the uplifting impact it would have, not to mention all the additional expenditure brought in with all the auction attendees staying in hotels, dining at restaurants and more. Desperately needed in all of our cities, five monumental injections of wealth a year would be perfect in our Northernmost city of Inverness, which would reanimate kickstart a bustling economy there and in the surrounding area, with the possibility of balancing the economic landscape of our country.

Again, this only concerns the primary selling of pelts to the fashion industry. The fur sector is multi-layered and engaged with the wider economy from a multitude of angles. It is almost impossible to account for how many sectors will benefit from the restoration of a Scottish fur industry; tradesmen from farm construction, labourers for operation maintenance, veterinarians caring for the animals, sale assistants for the auctions, art graduates drawing up designs at fashion houses, models for fur clothing and so on. The Scottish fur industry will also have influences on wider society like the salmon fisheries industry, with universities structuring educational programmes around it, like the ‘Marine Biology’ undergraduate degree and the ‘Applied Marine and Fisheries Ecology’ postgraduate degree offered by the University of Aberdeen, both gearing students towards a career in Scotland’s fisheries market.

In addition to the great economic benefits brought by a fur farming industry, it also greatly complements both the ecological and industrial environments of Scotland. Our climate of gentle Winters and restrained Summers might not be the best setting for a monumental tourism industry, but it is the ideal climate for fur farming, as it allows the animals to develop thick, luscious coats. Scotland’s salmon fisheries and the cast-off fish it produces could be utilised to substantiate the diet of the animals within the fur farms to gift them their fur with a glorious sheen, as Danish mink are gifted their shining fur thanks to the oils contained within their enriching fish-heavy diet. The case the creation fur farming in Scotland is augmented further by the requirement of providing the mink with the freshest, most pure water available, as it assists in fostering the splendour of their coats. Scotland is renowned for its water quality, so we would no problem meeting this additional need, as the secret of breaking into the prime-quality fur market appears to be found in the diet of the animals.

Being an advanced, high-income nation, clothing and throws made from the pelts from the fur farms will have a roaring success in the domestic marketplace. Considering the great global appetite for fur, the prosperous reputation a Scottish fur industry will quickly attain is likely to alter the fashion tastes of our people, causing them to appreciate fur coats, throws and accessories, with them becoming highly desired items of aspiration. One might think that such luxury products would have no domestic market due to their high price tags, but such products take pride in domestic start-to-finish creation, with added costs of this being gladly absorbed by high-income/‘‘it’s a gift’’ clientele, as well as having an appeal to the growing ‘sustainability’ market, where high-cost, long-lasting items like fur products appeal greatly.

A final point of principal importance is reiterating that the establishment of a fur industry in Scotland is a necessity. The coronavirus lockdowns have caused an estimated £250 billion in damage to the UK economy and left us in the first recession in over a decade. With record government peacetime spending, along with the borrowing that accompanies this, it has been announced that it is expected future governments, irrespective of political alignment, will be announcing a series of tax increases for years to come in an effort to recoup 2020 expenditure. Additional income taxes will further reduce peoples’ already strained incomes and hamper the quality of our fleeting lives. Increased business taxation constricts individual economic activity, preventing businesses from investing in themselves, future projects and hiring people. To prevent decades of economic hardship and to bring to life all the wonders detailed throughout this article, the present government must recognise this golden opportunity and begin the rewarding journey towards establishing a Scottish fur farming industry.

Composed by,

Maurice Alexander, Undergraduate of Business Management at the University of Aberdeen