Comments on: Farmed Mink Are Domesticated, not “Captive Wildlife” as Activists Claim

By: WowScience

WowScience — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 00:36:35 +0000

Nope, mink are NOT domestic. Here are the reasons why:
1. One thing is a mutation. Another thing is a domestic animal. Fur farm minks are mutated, but yet not “domestic”. If mink were “domestic”, they’d be slower than their wild cousins, lose their ability and need for swimming (ranch mink that have been rescued have been known to enjoy swimming) , and their temperament would truly change (ranch mink have exactly the same temperament of a wild mink).
2. Mink can survive in the wild, and NO, they’re NOT feral mink. Why do you think minks have become invasive species in Europe, for example? And you can usually notice how mink have survived so well in the wild, they have changed into their original wild color, and have driven the european mink to endangerment
3. Just because mink have been captive-bred for hundreds of years doesn’t mean “domestication”. In Europe, falcons have been captive-bred for thousands of years and they still aren’t domestic animals. Even elephants aren’t domestic animals, despite they’ve been captive-bred in Asia for thousands of years.
4. Only the albino minks are the only ones who don’t survive well in the wild. Same thing occurs in the wild. They’re albino tigers out there, and many of them end up dying.

In conclusion, minks are NOT domestic. Full stop. Watch Joseph Carter the Mink Man on YouTube.

By: Simon Ward, editor, Truth About Fur

Simon Ward, editor, Truth About Fur — Thu, 15 Aug 2024 07:49:37 +0000

In reply to Lsea.

You’re right, of course, to realise that this is purely a semantic debate. To a large extent it’s been forced on society by animal rights groups, and we have all feel the need to respond in our own way. But there’s precious little science involved here. Personally, I find it useful to consider the symbiotic relationships between humans and some animal species like semi-wild chickens and a few dog species in SE Asia that are often adopted as family pets but are essentially wild. I’m not talking about feral domesticated dogs, but species that are wrongly identified as Canis familiaris when in fact they are related to Australia’s definitely wild dingo. These species represent a middle ground between wildness and domestication, while also serving to emphasise that it’s one huge grey area. But animal rights groups demand clear answers, so we try our best to provide them 🙂

By: Lsea

Lsea — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 00:57:08 +0000

Looking into biology and scientific definitions of what “domestication” supposedly is has made it seem like an incredibly imprecise, muddled term. They seem highly motivated to exclude all species of animals that weren’t incorporated into human society tens of thousands of years ago, or that don’t fit 21st century, middle class ideas of what would make a suitable pet. But there isn’t a good way to justify that by any objective, sensible measure, so you get complete wingnuttery like that proposed law in Spain that started out as something to rein in greyhound racing, and wound up asserting that it’s cruel to keep anything but a cat or a dog as a companion animal, because humans are just incapable of meeting these wild things’ needs properly. If it passed, guinea pig and rabbit owners would have had to prove they’d owned their animals before the law came into effect, and further prove they’d had them sterilized. Disturbing stuff.

Anyway – lay people seem to conceptualize domestication as whole species of animals that are “tame” and not considered dangerous to humans, but again, that definition breaks down the moment you consider how many humans per year are mauled by dogs, or the fact that all the large farm animals can and do sometimes kill people. Looking at what the US government has to say about it has also not helped at all – by official standards, a fox, raccoon, or a mink are farm animals if they’re being raised for fur, in my state, but “dangerous wild animals” and potential threats the second anyone tries to keep one as a pet. So, according to Russia, domestication isn’t a lost art, but according the America, no one knows how our ancestors did it and anything that might smell of that now is probably animal abuse or human endangerment. It’s beyond bizarre.

I’d like to be able to accept your argument, that an animal is domesticated if it is adapted to living in captivity without undue fear and stress, and has a body and temperament that reflects this. It admittedly makes a lot more sense than a lot of what I’ve seen so far. My main concern is that any human industry keeping an animal under any conditions, uninterfered-with, for not that many generations, could claim what they were doing was “good enough” just on account of their animals not being identical to their wild relatives (i.e. not getting frantic at the sight of humans when humans brought them food every day all their lives, for instance) and not croaking.

By: Faraz Farooqi

Faraz Farooqi — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 18:08:07 +0000

In reply to Sachin Raghavan. God Almighty created this earth and its bounties including all farm animals for human beings and their needs. As long as there is a sustainable method and if a farmed specie is not endangered, there should not be any issue for consumption or use for skin for mankind. If your particular flavor of religion does not allow this, then please by all means abstain but do not make issue for others who are not forbidden either by religion, morally or due to an abundance of absence of a threat to a specie or species. Live and let others live.

By: Sachin Raghavan

Sachin Raghavan — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 08:42:37 +0000

Making it easier to enslave and kill an animal doesn’t suddenly make it justafiable. Domesticated, wild, doesn’t matter. They’re victimized either way.