ACTION ALERT:
Contact:
Dr. Robert Gibbens
Director, Western Region, USDA
(970) 494-7478
[email protected]
[email protected]
SAMPLE MESSAGE:
Please levy the MAXIMUM FINE against Ruby Fur Farm as well as terminating their license for their blatant disregard of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) which: left dead animals in enclosures to rot, left animals infested with insects, allowed swarms of flies buzzing in enclosures, and allowed animals to suffer from excessive heat. Their behavior should NOT be tolerated and MUST be punished to the fullest extent of the law for this repeat violator of the Animal Welfar Act!
Stink over conditions at skunk & ferret "fur farm"
By Merrit Clifton,
Animals24-7.org, October 23, 2017
SAEN seeks Animal Welfare Act charges against “fur farm” that appears to
breed animals mostly for laboratories & the pet trade
NEW SHARON, Iowa––If the 85-year-old Ruby Fur Farm was just a fur farm,
producing mink or fox pelts for the garment industry, it would not be
subject to unannounced visits from the USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection
Service (APHIS)––but it isn’t.
Despite the name inviting an association with the fur garment trade, an
association that most actual pelt producers try to avoid these days, the
Ruby Fur Farm in recent years does not seem to have been involved much in
fur pelt production, if at all.
Inspection reports
Run by at least three generations of the Ruby family in New Sharon, Iowa,
about halfway between Iowa City and DesMoines, the Ruby Fur Farm appears to
have been chiefly engaged for many years in raising fur-bearing animals for
other purposes.
One Ruby Fur Farm activity is breeding animals of species seldom used in
biomedical research for highly specialized lab use. The Ruby Fur Farm also
produces skunks, raccoons, ferrets and exotic birds for the pet trade.
Breeding animals for lab use and the pet industry are both regulated
under the federal Animal Welfare Act, unlike fur farming, which is
considered a branch of agribusiness, like breeding cattle, pigs, and
chickens, and is therefore exempt.
Because the Ruby Fur Farm is subject to USDA-APHIS inspection, it
produces a paper trail of inspection reports accessible through Freedom of
Information Act requests.
How many skunks does the government want?
Because the Cincinnati-based organization Stop Animal Exploitation Now
closely monitors USDA-APHIS inspection reports, the Ruby Fur Farm is subject
of a recent SAEN complaint alleging “nearly two dozen” violations of the
Animal Welfare Act, and “calling for the termination of the animal dealer’s
license, and confiscation of all animals,” according to an October 18, 2017
SAEN media release.
SAEN in a separate media release alleged that the federal government is
“protecting animal abusers by removing the identifying information from the
inspection reports.”
Ironically, the USDA itself appears to be the Ruby Fur Farm’s biggest
individual customer. In recent years the USDA has placed eight orders with
the Ruby Fur Farm, paying $67,525 for at least 50 skunks and more than 40
raccoons for unspecified laboratory uses.
Headless ferret
SAEN cities USDA-APHIS inspection reports documenting “dead animals left
in enclosures to rot, animals infested with insects, swarms of flies buzzing
enclosures, and animals exposed to deadly, excessive heat.”
Specifically, one USDA-APHIS inspection report found, in the language of
the inspection report, a “dead, decomposing, headless juvenile ferret
incorporated into the fecal material buildup on the wire floor in the corner
of the cage,” which was occupied by “One live adult and six juvenile
ferrets.”
The inspection also found that “Under several enclosures containing
raccoons, there are numerous live maggots present in the piles of excreta,”
in a building with “a high ambient temperature and humidity.”
SAEN has asked USDA-APHIS to fine the Ruby Fur Farm the maximum $10,000
per infraction/per animal, “which could lead to a fine in excess of $1
million,” SAEN calculates. Fines even close to that high have never been
levied in a comparable case, but even much smaller fines would seem likely
to put the Ruby Fur Farm out of business.
The present proprietors, Randy Joe and Merrill Ruby, are close to 60
years old, having taken over the farm from Randy’s parents Lawrence C. and
Mae Ruby, who died in 1985 and 2011, respectively. Lawrence C. Ruby was son
of the founders.
Diversified more than 50 years ago
Initially the Ruby Fur Farm was, like hundreds of others, engaged chiefly
in pelt production for the fur garment industry. But it diversified long
before most other fur farms began looking for ways to make a buck amid
declining demand for fur garments.
The Ruby Fur Farm began raising skunks as early as 1932, when fur farming
of any species was still a new industry. In 1951 the Ruby Fur Farm
proprietors took out classified ads in various rural Iowa newspapers
offering trappers $2.50 apiece for red fox pups, who apparently were the
breeding stock used for conventional fox pelt farming.
By 1966, however, most U.S. fur farmers were transitioning from fox to
mink production, as fox fur fell enduringly out of vogue. Instead of going
into mink, the Ruby Fur Farm re-emphasized breeding striped skunks,
descented at an early age, for sale to pet stores.
From 1969 to 1974 (at least) the Ruby Fur Farm advertised “red fox, blue
fox, coyote, owls, albino skunk” and sometimes also ferrets in Field &
Stream magazine.
Dominates the skunk trade
Skunks appear to have accounted for most of the Ruby Fur Farm’s business
for circa 35 years. By reputation, the Ruby Fur Farm is still the leading
supplier of descented skunks to the pet trade, but only 19 states still
allow possession of pet skunks.
As of 2011, the Ruby Fur Farm inventory reportedly included 1,500
ferrets, 1,000 striped skunks, 350 raccoons, and 30 grey foxes, a species
rarely ranched for pelts.
Mainstream fur farmers “think mink”
The fur farming business in the U.S., as worldwide, remains dominated by
mink. According to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, “Mink
pelt production in the United States in 2016 totaled 3.32 million pelts,
down 10% from 2015,” but close to the annual average of the past 40 years.
U.S. ranched mink production peaked at nearly six million pelts in 1969,
dipping thereafter due to increased foreign competition, even as U.S. retail
fur garment sales rose to an all-time high, in inflation-adjusted dollars,
in the mid-1980s.
The value of ranched mink pelts produced in the U.S. in 2016 was $116
million, the lowest total since 2004, but close to the 20-year norm, though
barely a third of the $291 million peak reached in 2011, a year of unusually
intense speculation in the international fur industry.
The average price paid per pelt in 2016 was $35.00, barely a third of the
peak price of $94.30 reached in 2011, but also close to the 20-year norm.
Industry shakeout
If not prospering, the U.S. ranched mink industry has survived a long
shakeout that has seen Chinese production fall from 40 million mink pelts in
2013 to just eight million in 2016. China briefly overtook Denmark as the
leading producer of ranched mink, but Denmark, pelting 17 to 19 million mink
per year, is again the world leader.
Globally, ranched mink offerings at auction remain in the range of 70-75
million pelts, accounting for most of the total of about 110 million raw
pelts sold per year.
The rapid rise of fur ranching in China in the early 20th century,
however, followed by a glut of Chinese pelts on the market in recent years,
weakened the fur farming industry in Europe to the extent that many
governments are no longer trying to protect what remains of it.
Fur farming bans
Most recently, both houses of the Czech Republic legislature have voted
to ban fur farming effective in 2019. This would close nine fur farms with
cumulative production of about 20,000 mink and fox pelts per year.
Austria, Croatia, Japan, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and the United
Kingdom have already banned fur farming, or at least mink, raccoon, coypu
(nutria) and fox farming, from a combination of humane concerns with concern
about mink, raccoons, and non-native fox breeds escaping and going feral.
In addition, Germany has reportedly adopted environmental and animal
welfare standards that are expected to close the last five German mink
farms.
The Dutch ban on fur farming, adopted in 2012, was judicially overturned
in 2014 on appeal from a consortium representing the 160 fur farmers in The
Netherlands, but the appellate ruling was then overturned in December 2016
by the Dutch Supreme Court.
Mink, raccoon, and coypu farming in Japan was prohibited under the Invasive Alien Species Act in 2006, but fur farms already operating were allowed to continue. The last Japanese fur farm closed in November 2016.
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