The Fur Industry Is a Dying Industry: It’s Time to Put It Out of Its Misery

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has just released updated numbers from their annual mink survey, confirming the decline in supply and demand associated with this cruel industry, which Born Free USA has monitored closely for the last several years.

Mink Production and Prices Are Down

According to the latest totals, 771,200 million pelts were produced in 2024; a 19% reduction from 2023. Additionally, the value of all mink pelts produced in 2024 fell to $28.1 million; a 14% reduction from the previous year. For comparison, in 2015, there were 3.75 million pelts produced in the U.S. at a value of $117 million. This change represents an enormous 80% decrease in mink pelt production over the past decade.

The Mink Trade is Dying but There Is Still Urgent Need to End it Once and For All

While it seems promising that the trajectory of the fur farming industry in the U.S. is on the downswing, we must reiterate the importance of outlawing this cruel, dangerous and unethical practice. Farming minks creates terrible welfare conditions for the animals but also threatens public health and safety through the spread of diseases that can pass from animals to people (zoonotic diseases), primarily including avian influenza and COVID-19. With an estimated 75% of emerging infectious diseases in humans being zoonotic, the threat of zoonoses should not be taken lightly.

Our rigorous research on this subject indicates that the unsanitary housing conditions at fur farms and the anatomical similarity of human and mink upper respiratory tracts (allowing for ease in transmission of respiratory viruses) are major contributing factors that may lead to the next major pandemic outbreak, putting millions of human and animal lives at risk. Minks also act as reservoirs in which viruses evolve separately from human populations and cause greater harm to immunocompromised people, older generations, and unexposed younger populations.

The Market for Mink Fur Is Shrinking

In addition to the dozens of nations that have already banned fur sales overseas, further closing markets for fur products, cities and states within the U.S. have started to follow suit. California was the first state in the U.S. to ban fur sales in 2019, with a dozen cities taking similar measures across the U.S. all the way to the east coast following close behind. In 2020, there was a nearly 50% decline in the value of fur apparel imported into the U.S. compared to 2019, which was also a low year.

In a major move in July 2025, the European Union added the American mink to their list of Invasive Alien Species of Union Concern due to the ecological risks this species poses to native wildlife, meaning that keeping and breeding American mink in the EU will be banned starting in July 2027.

Additionally, on the grounds of preserving human public health and safety, British Columbia, Canada, just announced it would phase out mink farming after mink and farm workers tested positive for COVID-19 at multiple BC mink farms. The province will provide financial support and other transition assistance for mink farmers.

Take Action to End Mink Farming

To eliminate a severe public health threat and end this harmful practice for good, there exists a solution that would benefit all: the “Mink: Vectors for Infection Risk in the United States Act” (Mink VIRUS Act), which would end the farming of mink for fur after a one-year phase-out period and establish a USDA grant program to reimburse mink farmers for the full value of their farm.

If you believe in protecting human health and safety, discontinuing the use of unwitting taxpayer dollars to support this horrific practice, and saving the lives of millions of animals, please ask your representatives to support this important legislation before it is too late and the next pandemic is upon us.

Keep Wildlife in the Wild,

Devan