Residents To Decide On Proposed Fur Sales Ban At Town Meeting – CapeNews.net

Fur coats

Fur coats
Mashpee resident Larry Ginsburg is leading the charge for banning fur sales in town. On Monday, May 4, residents will have the chance to vote on supporting or opposing the proposal, which is detailed in Article 33 on the Annual Town Meeting warrant.
“It takes over 100 animals to make one of these fur coats,” Ginsburg, who is also a member of the Mashpee Freshwater Ponds Advisory Committee, told the Enterprise on April 1. “It seems like such a senseless approach to the world.”
Ginsburg credits his son for the citizens’ petition warrant article he submitted for the town’s consideration.
“My son’s a vegan. I am not ever going to be a vegan; I love my pastrami sandwiches,” he said. “We were sort of talking about what I can do to help move the world more in that direction because I really don’t believe that there’s any intellectual or moral justification for eating meat in a world like this, where environmental consequences and other horrible things result from it.”
After doing research, Ginsburg learned about fur bans, which other towns in the commonwealth have already enacted.
“I realized that there was some sort of statewide effort to do that,” he said. “Eight or so towns in Massachusetts have already passed a similar piece of legislation.”
Massachusetts House Bill H.990 and Senate Bill S.551 propose to ban the sale of new fur products for the sake of reducing animal cruelty and increasing animal welfare.
“The House bill actually came out of committee for the first time with a favorable report this session, which is major progress for the statewide bill,” Humane World for Animals State Director Preyel Patel said. “The statewide bills would prohibit the sale of new fur products from animals raised on fur factory farms.”
Patel said that there is a coalition of nearly 10 organizations that have submitted testimony in support of these bills.
“We have local bylaws in eight Massachusetts communities that are building momentum for the state action,” Patel told the Enterprise on April 7. “Mashpee’s consideration of Article 33 adds to that momentum.”
The eight other Massachusetts towns that have banned the sale of new fur products are Brookline, Cambridge, Lexington, Plymouth, Wellesley, Weston, Attleboro and Arlington.
Ginsburg called the citizens’ petition symbolic, as there are currently no businesses in town that sell new fur products.
“I just thought it would be a good idea, and something symbolic that the Town of Mashpee could do to promote animal well-being and human well-being,” Ginsburg said.
One of the most important things, Ginsburg said, was making time to discuss his citizens’ petition with the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. Getting the Tribe’s support for the legislation, he said, was “really important” to him.
“I was really concerned about that,” Ginsburg said. “I didn’t want to do anything that would infringe upon any rights that they have and their use of animals.”
Patel called the proposal “quite reasonable,” explaining it includes “exemptions in this bylaw for cultural use, religious use [and] Tribal use.”
Speaking with the Enterprise last week, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council chairman Brian M. Weeden said that the Tribe supports the petition article.
“The [Tribal] Council did actually vote unanimously to support this article, so that is an action that the Council did take,” Weeden said on April 6. “The Council and the Tribe do support this article.”
Weeden said that the Tribe sometimes used fur for blankets and beds because traditionally, they did not have mattresses or blankets. Fur is also used for ceremonies.
“Black wolf is considered to be a leader, and that would be your Sachem or something, traditionally,” Weeden said. “Or if you have a Bear Clan, it’s common for people to have bear fur or incorporate that into their regalia and their traditional clothing.”
Article 33 aligns with the Tribe’s traditional ways, Weeden said.
“It just kind of aligns with our traditional philosophies—you don’t take more than you need, and that’s kind of the theme and what we want to stick with,” he said. “If people were hunting and trapping for their own consumption, that’s different. But if you’re doing it for revenue, then that’s not something we support.”
On March 16, the Mashpee Select Board unanimously voted to approve and recommend Article 33 to Town Meeting.
“I think that it demonstrates a willingness of the town council to do something that’s right,” Ginsburg said, “not that they don’t do that often—it’s sort of my first experience doing something like this, and obviously I was really pleased. I tried to spend some time talking to the individual board members in advance about what it was and tried to figure out objections to it.”
Ginsburg said he has not yet heard any objections to the fur ban.
Both Patel and Ginsburg said that fur farms have several negative public health and environmental issues in communities.
“The way I would think of it, fur farms are essentially intensive wildlife confinement operations. They’ve been linked to outbreaks of multiple diseases,” Patel said.
Fur farms in 12 countries, including the United States, tested positive for COVID-19 in 2020. Patel said they were considered mutation huts, where the virus spread back to humans.
“More recently, a highly pathogenic avian influenza, the bird flu, has been detected on fur farms in Europe,” she said. “Leading researchers to call fur farms a petri dish for future pandemics.”
As for environmental impacts, fur has the largest negative environmental impact per kilogram of any material used in fashion.
“For water consumption, fur production uses 104 times more water than acrylic, roughly 91 times more water than polyester, and five times more water than cotton,” she said. “The climate footprint of fur production, mink fur and fox fur, is approximately six times greater than faux fur.”
Fur production also generates a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions in producing feed for the animals, animal waste, the processing of fur products and the chemicals used for tanning and dying processes.
“I’d encourage any Mashpee voter who cares about this to attend Town Meeting on May 4 and vote,” Patel said. “Town Meeting is a direct democracy, so the outcome is going to be decided by the people who show up. The Select Board has recommended Article 33 unanimously, but it’s going to be ultimately up to the voters to make that final decision.”
For the sake of animal welfare, Ginsburg publicly asked residents to consider the petition. During the Select Board’s March 16 meeting, Patel explained the cruelty that minks and foxes typically experience within the fur industry.
“Animals that are used in the fur industry are usually wild species, mostly foxes and mink,” she said. “They usually live in wired, bottomed cages that are pretty small, small enough that they can barely move their bodies.”
She said that the systems are typically outdoors, with very limited weather protection.
“These animals are killed often through anal electrocution or vaginal electrocution to preserve the quality of the pelts,” she said. “Moreover, their modern animal welfare laws do not apply to these animals because they are not covered by humane slaughter laws, since they are not used for food. Even the most basic minimal welfare standards don’t apply to animals that are farmed for fur.”
Ginsburg called their conditions “horrendous.”
“It’s really a question of promoting animal welfare,” he said. “These animals are raised in indescribably horrendous conditions. They’re kept in two-by-two boxes. They’re in cages their entire lives just to make somebody a fur coat.”
There are no fur farms in Massachusetts or New England, Patel said.
“Massachusetts consumers are contributing, at the end of the day, to the demand driving the global fur industry,” Patel said. “Each community that acts [on these bans] really can contribute to reducing that demand. Mashpee voters, if they care about this issue, have the opportunity to decide the outcome on May 4.”
At the end of 2025, Humane World for Animals conducted a statewide poll that revealed that 73% of Massachusetts residents support ending the sale of new fur products. Patel said that Democrats, Republicans, and Independents in Massachusetts favor ending fur sales.
“I think that reflects where the public already is on the issue,” she said.
Massachusetts ranks third in the country for retail sales of new fur products, behind New York and Texas.
“I think it is really surprising that it does rank so highly, especially when it’s not a popular thing,” Patel said. “California, for one, has a statewide ban enacted in 2023, so that increases Massachusetts ranking because California would have been up there before then.”
She said that this is due, in part, to online sales.
“I would say that internationally and in terms of where the market is heading, fur sales are declining nationwide,” Patel said. “The imports of fur sales have declined in the United States.”
Media companies like Conde Nast and Hearst Magazines, Patel said, have also adopted fur-free policies.
“The conversation on the issue is shifting,” she said.
Mashpee Town Meeting is scheduled for Monday, May 4, at 7 PM at the Mashpee-Middle High School.

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