Are fur, silk and down cruel to animals?

The objection

“Fur’s barbaric, fine, but silk and down are basically harmless. Down’s just a by-product, and silkworms are insects. Where’s the harm?”

The answer

All three come from industries that kill animals. Fur is the most open about it; with silk the killing happens out of sight inside the cocoon, and down comes mostly from ducks and geese after slaughter, with a small share taken from birds that are still alive.

How are animals treated on fur farms?

Fur farms keep mink, foxes, raccoon dogs and chinchillas in cages, and in 2025 the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the EU’s food safety agency, concluded that in most cases the welfare problems this causes can be neither prevented nor substantially reduced in the cage systems now in use [1]. In every species the problems it ranked most relevant included restricted movement and the inability to explore or forage, both traced to the size and barrenness of the cages: a farmed mink typically gets 0.21 to 0.28 square metres of floor plus a nest box and sometimes platforms or shelves, where a wild mink’s territory can reach a square kilometre (2025) [1]. Campaign groups put the number killed for fur at tens of millions a year [2][3], at around 8 to 10 months old [3]. EU rules on killing animals (2009) allow mink to be gassed with carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide and foxes to be electrocuted with electrodes in the mouth and rectum [4], and the Fur Free Alliance, which campaigns against fur, says raccoon dogs are generally killed the same way as foxes and that these methods are used to preserve the pelts [2].

Where is fur farming banned?

The Fur Free Alliance counts more than 20 countries that have passed bans on fur production, some still being phased in, starting with the UK, which banned it in 2000 with effect from 2003, and including the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium and Norway; Poland prohibited it in December 2025, with a phase-out running until 2033 [5]. Ireland’s took effect on 9 December 2022, with penalties of up to €250,000, five years in prison or both [6], and by March 2023 its agriculture minister had confirmed that no live mink remained at the three businesses affected [7]. In Canada, the BC SPCA reported in 2021 that British Columbia had announced a ban on live mink on farms after April 2023 and a full shutdown of the industry by 2025, citing the spread of COVID-19 on mink farms [8]. The province’s fur farm regulation, in its October 2026 consolidation, forbids any fur farming of mink but still lets foxes, chinchillas and some other fur species be farmed under licence [9].

Is silk vegan?

Silk isn’t vegan: it is spun by silkworms, and in conventional silk the pupa inside each cocoon is killed before it can emerge as a moth [10]. The Vegan Society’s definition of veganism excludes, as far as is possible and practicable, exploiting animals for clothing as well as food, and it counts insects among the animal foods a vegan diet avoids [11]. Killing the pupa is called stifling, and it is done with steam, hot air or the sun over hours or even days, which also lets the silk be stored for long periods (2019) [10]. Raw silk is only 12 to 20% of the weight of a fresh cocoon of about 1.5 to 2.5 grams, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s reeling manual (1999), so each kilogram of silk takes thousands of cocoons [12]. Whether a pupa can feel anything is a harder question, taken up in the answer on whether insects feel pain.

Is down just a by-product of meat?

Most down is a by-product of slaughter: RSPCA Australia, an animal-welfare charity, estimated in 2019 that about 98% of down and feathers is collected after the birds are killed [13]. That ties a duvet or padded jacket to the duck and goose trade, whose welfare problems, the charity notes, include force-feeding for foie gras [13], which investigators filmed undercover on French farms in 2012. RSPCA Australia puts the share gathered from live birds, while they moult or by live-plucking, at roughly 1 to 2%, though it says accurate figures on live-plucking are lacking; plucking causes bleeding and torn skin, and cases have been reported in China, Hungary and Poland [13]. EFSA found in 2010 that moulted feathers can be gathered from geese without pain, but that plucking could not be ruled out and at least minor pain and injury seemed unavoidable under commercial conditions [14]. Textile Exchange’s Responsible Down Standard (2019), a voluntary certification, bans live-plucking, moult harvesting and force-feeding, and requires all down to come from birds raised for food, so the slaughterhouses that kill them are among the sites it certifies [15].

Wool and leather have an answer of their own.