City leaders have denied a proposal to reopen a Bluffdale mink farm due to changes in the zoning code.
Owners of the farm submitted an application to the city of Bluffdale for consideration to reinstate the business, but it was rejected because of a city ordinance that prohibits fur farming, according to city officials.
“When any business applies for a license in Bluffdale, one step our city takes is to check for compliance with our current laws and ordinances,” Amanda Luker, the city’s communications specialist, told KSL.com in a statement. “The denial of Dixon’s business license application was based on that evaluation.”
The Dixon mink farm, located at 15028 S. Pony Express Road in Bluffdale, has been closed for several years.
The owners also previously operated a mink farm in the neighboring city of Lehi.
Bluffdale previously allowed mink farms until the City Council voted to amend its zoning laws, thus banning fur farming as a permitted use.
The Dixon mink farm’s owners did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
In a post published to her Facebook page on Sept 11, Bluffdale Mayor Natalie Hall formally announced the decision to deny the business’s application, and owners of the farm had been notified.
“An application came to the city to restart a mink farm business. We did deny their application because they do not fit in the current zoning,” the post reads.
Hall went on to say that while people should be able to operate the business of their choice, zoning laws serve a purpose of shielding communities from what she described as “nuisances that affect our quality of life.”
Both Hall and City Councilwoman Wendy Aston implied that the mink farm had become an object of contention among nearby residents.
Aston said in a Facebook post on Sept. 9 that she led efforts to change the zoning code because of community members who allegedly complained about the impacts of having the mink farm in the city.
“As I knocked on doors of our independence area, there were so many flies, people couldn’t open their door to talk to me,” she said. “Because of this ordinance change the city can not approve the business license for this or any other mink farm.”
While the farm may be prohibited from operating in Bluffdale, according to Utah County land records, the business — Dixon Mink Ranch LLC appears to remain active.
Plummeting production
Bluffdale’s denial of reopening the Dixon mink farm is just a small part of the broader decline in the industry.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, mink pelt production in Utah saw a 50% decrease between 2022 and 2023.
Across the United States, mink pelt production fell 22% between 2022 and 2023. Despite the decline, Utah remains the second-highest producer of mink pelts behind Wisconsin.
Industry insiders believe the decline of mink farming in Utah could be attributed to several factors, including rising populations and increasing awareness of animal cruelty.
“Utah used to produce close to close to a million mink pelts each year, and in 2024 it dropped below 100,000,” said Nick Atwood, an animal activist. “It’s definitely had a very steep decline since probably the peak, which was (in) like 2014 (and) 2015.”
The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t help either, as hundreds of mink farms across the nation experienced outbreaks of the virus and found minks, according to the National Library of Medicine.
Atwood believes fur farming could potentially survive in Utah’s modern agricultural ecosystem, but at the level it once sustained.
“I think if mink farming does continue in the future in Utah, it’s going to be in very rural parts of the state; you know, not in Salt Lake County, or the kind of more suburban areas,” he said.