Fox Fur from Switzerland: Sustainable Fashion or Ethical Dilemma?

In Switzerland, around 20,000 foxes are shot annually for population control, and another 10,000 die from traffic or diseases. A young couple, Dennis and Alice, have turned this into a business: they process fox furs from hunting into fashion collections.

Dennis started hunting and discovered that most fox furs are burned. "To throw away such a high-quality material is incomprehensible to me," he says. Alice, a fashion designer, supports his idea of creating sustainable fashion from local material, without resorting to farmed fur.

Fox hunting is considered necessary by Jagd Schweiz (Hunting Switzerland) to maintain the ecological balance, as foxes could endanger other wildlife species and transmit diseases. Critics like Peta, however, argue that foxes are a natural "health police" in the forest. Furthermore, there is no systematic recording of the fox population, which makes the benefit of hunting difficult to prove scientifically.

Animal welfare organizations like Vier Pfoten (Four Paws) warn against a revival of the fur market through hunting products, as consumers often cannot tell whether fur comes from an ethical source. The couple, however, relies on transparency and advocates for sustainability with Swiss furs instead of cheap faux fur from abroad.

The debate remains: Is fashion made from local fox furs a contribution to resource conservation or a dangerous signal for the return of real fur?