In Their Own Words

If mink have access to swimming water, then they would get wet and probably get cold and die.
Robert Morgan, Chief Executive, British Fur Trade Association, Observer 1 June 1997
Morgan has obviously forgotten that mink are semi-aquatic animals who spend 60% of their active time in water and gain most of their food from aquatic sources (fish and water birds).

Jan Brown, Fur Education Council: You're welcome to come onto any [fur] farm at any time.
Presenter: We've been trying to come onto some of your farms for the last three weeks. You have actually been going out of your way to stop us getting onto any of your farms.
BBC Countryfile, 23 November 1997

You know, we harvest them, but we like them too, and this kind of thing just breaks your heart. US mink farmer Gary Brown talking about an ALF raid on his farm in which 3,000 mink were liberated, August 1998.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 1998

I assure you they're very tasty.
UK mink farmer Mike Cobbledick, Telegraph, 5 September 1998
No he doesn't eat mink, he's talking about the mixture of fish, slaughterhouse waste and cereal that is slopped on the mink's cage as 'food'.

It was my first trip to a fur farm ... I can't believe I had to go to Denmark to finally get to see a fur farm. I've made several requests to see farms in the United States over the past 10 years, but they were declined. I still find that a bit odd. What am I, an outsider?
Lisa Marcinek, editor of US fur industry magazine Fur Age, revealing the secrecy of the US fur industry. Fur Age, October 1998.

Fashion students from fur design centre in Denmark, quoted on a tour of a fur farm:
Oh, look at the mother trying to hide her babies from us, saying, No, don't kill my babies for a fur coat, don't take my babies, one said, providing a high-pitched, anthromorphicised voice for the mink. It was more juvenile than insulting, and they quickly lost interest and wandered off to another part of the farm.
Fur Age, October 1998

Fur designer on being asked about using fur:
It's like working with death, she said dramatically. When I asked why, then, she was still doing it, she shrugged and said, It's kind of interesting.
Fur Age, October 1998

Understatement of the Year:

Yes, well, I wasn't impressed with Terry's place.
Len Kelsall, Chair of the UK Fur Breeders Association, referring to the cruelty conviction of fellow fur farmer Terence Smith. Animals at Smith's farms were found with missing limbs and tails, and horrific and untreated head and body injuries.
Daily Mail, 27 November 1999