Finnish fur industry adds larger pelt class as footage shows oversized foxes

Finland’s fur industry has introduced a new pelt class for blue fox skins measuring more than 151 centimetres, while covertly filmed footage shows oversized foxes with health problems, Yle reports.

The footage, recorded between November 2025 and April 2026 at fur farms in Lapua, Veteli and Kauhava, shows blue foxes with enormous, folded and sagging skin, as well as untreated injuries. Yle verified the locations and dates using image metadata and details visible in the videos.

The material was provided to Finnish media by Animalia. It originated with the Swedish organisation Project 1882, which passed it to the international Fur Free Alliance. Animalia is one of the alliance’s Finnish member organisations.

Breeding oversized foxes was banned in Finland in 1991. The fur industry later promised to limit the animals’ size, but Animalia executive director Heidi Kivekäs said the footage and size categories used at fur auctions indicate that the promise has not been kept.

Obesity can cause foxes’ legs to bend and lead to eye problems. The issue is linked to rapid growth and overfeeding, according to the article.

Fur company Saga Furs does not see a conflict between efforts to control the animals’ size and the new pelt category. Sales director Mikko Hovén said the previous largest category had been divided into two. Pelts longer than 151 centimetres are now sold separately in category 70, he said.

The company’s size chart does not set an upper limit for category 70. Previously, the largest pelts were listed as measuring up to 155 centimetres.

Blue fox pelts are measured from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail. The categories listed by Saga Furs are 70 for more than 151 centimetres, 60 for 142.1 to 151 centimetres, 50 for 133.1 to 142 centimetres, 40 for 124.1 to 133 centimetres, 30 for 115.1 to 124 centimetres, 20 for 106.1 to 115 centimetres, 0 for 97.1 to 106 centimetres, 1 for 88.1 to 97 centimetres, 2 for 79.1 to 88 centimetres and 3 for 70.1 to 79 centimetres. Category 4 covers pelts up to 70 centimetres.

Riitta Kempe, a researcher at the Natural Resources Institute Finland, said the arrival of pelts longer than 150 centimetres creates further pressure to increase the animals’ size.

Olli-Pekka Nissinen, communications director at Fifur, the Finnish Fur Breeders’ Association, said pelt sizes are increasing across all farmed animal species and that he does not consider this a problem in itself. He said a larger pelt does not automatically mean that the animal was larger, because animals of the same size can produce larger or smaller pelts.