American Beauty star and Estonian-American Mena Suvari sent an urgent letter this week to Estonian Prime Minister Jüri Ratas expressing her support for a bill introduced in February by parliament members to ban fur farming in the country by 2028.
Her letter follows a recent survey that found that 69 percent of Estonians do not support breeding and killing animals for their fur. Politicians will cast their votes on the bill on May 9.
“I was thrilled to learn that 14 members of the Estonian Parliament have proposed a bill to ban fur farming,” writes Suvari. “I urge Estonia to join other countries — including Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Slovenia — in taking a stand against cruelty to animals by banning fur farms.”
Animals on fur farms are often given no veterinary care, and investigations of fox and fur farms in Estonia have revealed that animals are confined to filthy, cramped cages and suffer from festering, open wounds and eye infections.
PETA — whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” — notes that there are currently as many as 50 fur farms in Estonia, and the largest one holds 150,000 minks and 20,000 foxes. The total number of animals destined to be turned into human outerwear each year is around 200,000.
