An editorial by Simone Montuschi, spokesperson for the association Essere Animali, recounts the stages of the investigation into the possible opening of a mink farm in Veneto.
It takes two minutes. One to watch and share this video, which encapsulates months of investigations through which the investigative team at Essere Animali managed to document the conditions of minks on Italian farms and their deaths in gas chambers, also thanks to the use of hidden cameras and an undercover operative.
The other to sign and share the petition, already supported by over ten thousand people in just a few days, through which we are asking the municipal administration of Villadose — a town of five thousand inhabitants in the province of Rovigo, in Veneto — to do everything in its power to prevent the establishment of a ten-thousand-mink farm on its territory.
It is a battle we can win, while at the same time sending a broader message in support of the three proposed laws that, if passed, would finally introduce in Italy as well a "ban on the farming, capture and killing of animals for fur production". These proposals are signed by politicians from different sides of the political spectrum, but despite the widespread consensus — with 86 per cent of Italians opposed to such farms — they have been stalled for over three years.
A farm has submitted a request to change the species it breeds: from beef cattle to fur minks. In reality, this is not quite a new mink farm, but presumably an attempt to relocate a similar operation situated in the Padua area, within the Colli Euganei Park, where one of the last still-active mink farms in Italy is located.
There is also an opinion from the technical committee of the Colli Euganei Park, according to which the farming of wild and non-native animals, such as minks, would be incompatible with the park's own environmental plan. Must the operation therefore cease? For now, the farmer has appealed to the TAR (Regional Administrative Court), but the fact remains that he has already sought to establish another mink farm in Lendinara, also in the Rovigo area. This first project had been swiftly blocked thanks to a mobilisation on our part, but now we find ourselves back in the same situation, and there is a new obstacle too.
In Lendinara, an attentive town council had heeded our requests by amending the local regulations and banning the establishment of new mink farms, but this route is not available in Villadose, where the farmers, in order to get around this obstacle, have requested a change to the species farmed within an already existing operation.
What we are asking of the municipal administration of Villadose is to use every tool at its disposal to prevent this farm from coming into existence. A first step, even if only symbolic, would be the approval of a motion in support of the aforementioned proposed laws. Essere Animali, together with Lav Rovigo and the environmental committees Lasciateci Respirare and Terre Nostre, has launched a new mobilisation: a public conference is planned for 7 October, with leafleting and demonstrations.
According to some researchers, minks — wild animals that live along rivers and waterways — when confined to the cages of farms, suffer the same level of stress caused by food deprivation, due to their inability to swim.
Minks hunger for freedom — a fact understood by the governments of eight European countries that have already moved to ban such farms. Emblematic is the case of the Netherlands, where from 2024 the farming of minks will also be prohibited, following an initial ban that covered only foxes and chinchillas. Eleven years will pass between the enactment of the law and the closure of the farms. This transition period might seem so long as to be farcical, were it not for the fact that the Netherlands is actually the fourth largest producer of mink fur in the world.
And yet, despite such a flourishing sector, read what the civil rights department of the Court of The Hague had to say in ruling against the appeal lodged by the Dutch fur producers' federation:
It should not have escaped the farmers' notice that wearing fur and breeding animals for the production of pelts has for many years now been considered immoral by a large section of Dutch society.
One might be tempted to smile, but it is cause for sadness. Indeed, in the Netherlands there are 5.5 million farmed minks and in Italy "only" 200,000, yet despite this, the Agriculture Committee of the Chamber of Deputies and the Health Committee of the Senate have still not seen fit to schedule acts no. C.288 and C.2148 and the bill S62 that would ban these farms.
We must not, however, lose heart. On the contrary, this situation should be a spur to mobilise again, by taking part in campaigns such as the one to prevent the establishment of the farm in Villadose.
Strong messages in support of this campaign are also coming from the world of fashion. Recently, Giorgio Armani personally made official his commitment to no longer using fur. "The technological progress achieved in recent years," he declared, "allows us to have valid alternatives at our disposal that make it unnecessary to resort to cruel practices towards animals."
The direction is clear: a future without fur, garments that the majority of people already reject — a symbol of the suffering and killing of magnificent animals for futile reasons.