Shocking footage of animals being battered to death for their skins has strengthened campaigners' resolve to ensure the government upholds its ban on fur imports.
An undercover investigation in the States, which exports wild-trapped and farmed fur to the UK, filmed raccoons being brutally clubbed.
Last month it emerged MPs, including many conservatives, plan a revolt against the Prime Minister over the scrapping of a ban that allows such skins to be imported into Britain.
Boris Johnson has so far dodged questions over the reported plans.
Furs - and foie gras - had been due to face a trade bar as part of the Government's Animals Abroad Bill, but the policy now seems to have been ditched.
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Trapping animals for fur with leg hold traps has been banned in the UK for more than 60 years, while fur farming has been outlawed across the UK since 2003.
Despite this, according to campaigners, if there were a U-turn on the current import ban, it would see a "complete double standard" adopted by the UK.
In collaboration with Humane Society International, the hard-hitting investigation released today by Born Free USA shows trapped raccoons being bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat.
The video and audio evidence captured includes by activists show:
- Trapped raccoons being battered with a baseball bat causing protracted death.
- A trapper standing on the neck of a raccoon after the animal has been beaten with a bat.
- Animals being thrown in the back of a pickup truck after being bludgeoned but without confirmation of death. One raccoon was later found to be still alive and was hit multiple times again with the bat.
- A dead fox in a leghold trap that had struggled so hard to free himself that his leg had snapped clean through. Coyotes had likely killed the fox as he could not defend himself or run away.
- The bloody toe of a coyote torn off and left in the jaws of a trap during the animal's escape. The trapper added the toe to his grisly souvenir collection of other previously retrieved toes displayed on his truck dashboard.
- A representative from the Department of Natural Resources volunteering information on loopholes in trapping law, and trainers on a state-sponsored education course laughing as they talk about illegal practices.
Claire Bass, executive director of Humane Society International/UK, said: "This investigation provides a graphic account of the casual disregard for animal suffering that underpins the whole fur trade.
As if it's not enough to be caught for hours or even days in torturous traps that should belong only in horror films, the animals we filmed also endured protracted and violent deaths, being repeatedly bludgeoned and left to suffer, all to be skinned and sold for fur fashion.
"For as long as the UK continues to import and sell fur from animals caught in the wild or bred on factory fur farms, we remain complicit in this cruelty.
"I urge Boris Johnson to watch our video evidence to see for himself the abhorrent cruelty of the fur trade and heed the enormous public support to ban fur. Britain must not be party to this nasty trade anymore."
Will Travers OBE, co-founder and executive president of Born Free, added: "Trapped: Exposing the Violence of Trapping in the US has two objectives: to document the reality of trapping, where sentient beings are brutally exploited, and lives are ended with such casual disregard and lack of compassion, and to accelerate measures to bring an end to this cruel practice and its associated activities – including selling the skins of trapped animals for profit.
"As a species, we have done many things of which we can be justifiably proud. But not when it comes to trapping and the fur trade.
"This archaic throwback to the past is well beyond its sell-by date and is a stain on our humanity. It's time we evolved.
"We implore lawmakers in the UK, the US, and beyond to take swift action to call time on trapping."
The UK has imported more than £850 million of fur from Finland, Italy, Poland, China and the United States.
According to the HMRC, in the past decade (2011 to 2020), more than £20 million of fur (both farmed and trapped) was from the US.
Banning fur imports commands enormous public support.
The latest YouGov polls show that 73 per cent of Brits support a fur sales ban, with 74% of Conservative voters wanting to see the ban in place, up from 64% in 2018.
Furthermore, 63% of Brits think the government should increase its level of action of animal protection.
A ban had been set to be included in the upcoming Animals Abroad Bill, but following opposition from cabinet member Jacob Rees-Mogg and others, the government is believed to be considering abandoning it, along with a ban on imports of foie gras.
The UK government set out a clear ambition to be a 'world leader in animal welfare' with action on fur imports pledged in its Action Plan for Animal Welfare last year and repeated ministerial statements confirming that post-Brexit, the UK would be free to explore opportunities for a ban.
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A change.org petition started by TV naturalist Chris Packham has gained more than 133,000 signatures so far calling on the government to #DontBetrayAnimals by abandoning bans on imports of fur and other cruel products such as foie gras.
Watch the investigation footage above.
Read the report at bornfreeusa.org/trappingexposed.
