Fox fur from Switzerland: Sustainable fashion or ethical dilemma?

In Switzerland, around 20,000 foxes are shot every year to control the population, and another 10,000 die from traffic or disease. A young couple, Dennis and Alice, have made a business out of it: they process fox furs from hunting into fashion collections.

Dennis started hunting and discovered that most fox furs are burned. "Throwing 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.

Swiss Hunting considers fox hunting to be necessary to maintain the ecological balance, as foxes endanger other game species and can transmit diseases. Critics such as Peta, however, argue that foxes are a natural "health police" in the forest. In addition, there is no systematic recording of the fox population, which makes it difficult to scientifically prove the benefits of hunting.

Animal welfare organizations such as Vier Pfoten warn against a revival of the fur market through hunting products, as consumers often cannot tell whether fur comes from ethical sources. However, the couple is committed to transparency and promotes sustainability with Swiss furs instead of cheap fake fur from abroad.

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