Fur is Bluish-Green

It turns out that the silly “Fur is Green” campaign might not be so wrong after all… that is if you consider blooms of toxic algae plaguing lakes near Canadian fur farms, green. Or perhaps the vomiting or diarrhea caused by exposure to this algae could be considered green as well (some of us were already barfing from the FurIsGreen.com website). Would fur fans like the Olsen sisters (above) be grossed out by this news? Probably.

Mink farms in Nova Scotia are making people sick, literally. A recent study of Yarmouth area lakes by Acadia University’s Center for Estuarine Research found that Lake Vaughan, Ogden and Fanning contained blooms of blueishgreen toxic algae called cyanobacteria, that may result in an outright environmental disaster, as Tri-County Watershed Protection Association’s Debbie Boudreau claims. These blooms are being blamed on a growing number of nearby mink farms whose feces, dead bodies, and waste has been dumped in the lakes for years at a growing rate. Residents have been fighting the farms for almost two decades, but the farms continue to expand and the effects of fecal bacteria and toxic algae are beginning to pose a serious threat to watersheds and reservoirs. Many citizens are worried that the reservoir of Lake George is next, and this will affect drinking water.

According to NovaNewsNow:

A letter written by the David Suzuki Foundation and four Nova Scotia citizen groups concerned with water conservation and protection has been sent to Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter and Nova Scotia Mink Breeders Association President Earl Prime. The letter states that unregulated mink farming in southwestern Nova Scotia is polluting local lakes, putting human health at risk and threatening wildlife.

The letter says that manure, carcasses and waste feed from largely unregulated and ever-expanding mink farms in Yarmouth and Digby counties in southwest Nova Scotia have been allowed to seep untreated into local watercourses for years.

The fur industry isn’t fooling anyone. Factory farming is factory farming. When you place a concentrated number of wild animals in an area that hasn’t evolved to deal with that concentration of waste – environmental disaster is inevitable. This is not fertilizer, as the industry would have you believe.

Please write a quick letter to the Nova Scotia Goverment and tell them to end the ecologically destructive and irresponsible fur industry, and have them pay to clean up the lakes.