Fur Farming - History

History

While wearing fur clothing in cold weather as protection goes back to the stone age, the source for this material came from the wild. As human populations grew, furs, leathers and hides for use in clothing came from farm stock such as sheep (sheepskin), rabbits, cattle, pigs and goats. The earliest records of breeding mink for fur in North America were in the 1860s. Foxes were first raised on farms for fur in Prince Edward Island in Canada in 1895.

Historically, the fur trade played an important economic role in the United States. Fur trappers explored and opened up large parts of North America, and the fashion for beaver hats led to intense competition for supplies of raw materials. Starting in the latter half of the 20th century, producers and wearers of fur have been criticized by animal rights activist because of the perceived cruelty they believe is involved in animal trapping and because of the availability of substitutes such as synthetic fibers (made from petroleum oil).

Today, 80 percent of the fur clothing industry's pelts come from animals raised on farms. The rest is from animals caught in the wild. The most farmed fur-bearing animal is the mink (50 million annually), followed by the fox (about 4 million annually). Asiatic and Finnish raccoon and chinchilla are also farmed for their fur. 64 percent of fur farms are in Northern Europe, 11 percent are in North America, and the rest are dispersed throughout the world, in countries such as Argentina and Russia.