“What the inspectors saw on site resembled a horror film.”

A fresh investigation has exposed brutal conditions of animals on a fur farm in Poland renewing calls for the UK to implement a ban on the trade.  

British-based charity Open Cages visited an abandoned Poland fur farm in response to an animal cruelty complaint lodged by a local NGO, after about a dozen foxes were seen walking slowly in the suburbs of Krotoszyn, a town in central Poland. 

Upon visiting the farm, the team found carcasses of animals locked up in cages. They also found starving foxes feeding on the rotting corpses of others.

Connor Jackson, the chief executive of Open Cages told The Independent: “Cannibalism is common on fur farms, but these foxes had been left without food which made it worse.

“Injuries on some animals indicate that they were bitten by cage mates.”

‘Resembling a horror film’

The team that visited the site in October also found around 130 dead foxes in cages.

According to their report, the animals were most likely killed by electrocution, though it was not clear who had put them to death.

“By now we know how depraved the fur industry is, but even this came as a huge shock,” Jackson said.

“I cannot imagine the agony these foxes have had to endure just for a fur trim on a coat.”

He added: “What the inspectors saw on site resembled a horror film. The animals were deprived of care for at least a few or even a dozen or so days. The owner of the farm is in prison and there was no contact with the person appointed by him to take care of the animals.”

While most of the foxes were already dead by the time the team reached the farm, the animal charity was able to rescue around 18 foxes.

Ban fur farming

Poland is considered to be the third largest producer of real fur behind China and Denmark. While farming fur was banned by the UK 20 years ago, it is still legal to buy fur in the UK and across Europe in a number of fashion retail stores.

Open Cages has launched a petition to secure an outright ban on the cruel inhumane practice in which animals are trapped, caged, and brutally suffocated in gas chambers or electrocuted for their skin hides.

You can sign the petition here.

• Read: Hungary bans fur farming of mink, foxes and more after COVID-19 spread on mink farms raise ‘public health concerns’

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