Madam, - I refer to your interesting article featuring the Barnardo family and their furrier business (Property, October 15th).
Elizabeth Barnardo is quoted as saying that "(we) use farmed animals and so don't endanger species".
Possibly she is unaware of the conditions under which animals, farmed for their pelts, live out their lives. In Ireland, The Department of Agriculture issues licences for the farming of mink. There are six such farms in the Republic - and the Department estimates that there are over 110,000 mink in them. They are kept incarcerated in small wire mesh cages. After six months of this torturous physical and sensory deprivation, they are killed.
No licences are required for fox farming. There are estimated to be about 1,700 Arctic and silver foxes, also trapped for life in wire mesh cages.
Both species are deprived of all their sensory needs - to roam, to hunt and, in the case of mink, to swim.
Death does not come easily. Mink are aquatic animals and can hold their intake of breath. They are gassed in carbon monoxide - acknowledged to be a slow death for each creature.
Foxes are individually hauled from their cages by a halter-type gripper. Electrodes are placed in the mouth and up the anal passage. No law demands that either procedure is carried out under veterinary supervision.
Fur farming has been illegal in Northern Ireland and in Britain since January 1st. But fur farms continue to thrive in the Republic - as long as there are furriers who will purchase the "products" of cruelty; and for as long as vanity triumphs over humanity, or the public remains in ignorance of the truth behind that "luxurious" must-have animal skin. - Yours, etc.,
I. HERON, Alliance for Animal Rights, Dublin 1.