https://yle.fi/a/74-20043331?utm_medium=social&utm_source=copy-link-share
Does Finland want to be known like Wuhan? Are the Finnish officials and fur farmers gambling with bird flu?
Finland is still a country of forests and already in prehistoric times Finland used to export animal fur. But for the last hundred years it has meant wild animals living in small cages, bread into millions in the spring, killed for their fur in the early winter and feeding the meat for the next generation.
Now the bird flu has entered Finland and unfortunately many of the poor animals living in terrible conditions have been infected. It is known, that once the avian influenza makes the step from a bird to a mammal, the risk of it becoming infectious to humans is much greater.
Fur farming in Finland has been under much criticism for several decades already and according to polls 76 % of the Finns would like to ban fur farming altogether, but they have a very strong lobby. It wasn’t banned during the previous coalition government as two of the parties who have important support from Ostrobothia, the main fur farming region, were in the government and now the cabinet, formed in June does not even mention fur farming as all four parties have vested interest in the fur farming or fur sales.
Let’s hope nothing goes badly wrong. The animals sacrificing their lives for luxury products is the normal result, but now the danger of another pandemic is not that far away.