Animals Unbound
- 13 hours ago
- 3 min read
By Aurin Geirnaert and Hannah Veragten
The history of fur is usually told from a human perspective: as a story of trade, craftsmanship, fashion, and hard economics. Within this narrative, the animal rarely appears as anything other than a raw material. Yet animals have shaped human histories not merely as resources to be used, but through their bodies, behaviours, movements, and interactions with human environments. The final section of this exhibition therefore turns to the muskrat to shift the frame: from fur as the endpoint of animal life to animal life as a force that unsettles human systems of value and control.
The muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) is a semi-aquatic rodent belonging to the subfamily of voles and is native to North America. It was brought to Europe in the early twentieth century for its fur, known in the fur trade as Bisam. The fur, which was often made into collars and linings for coats, is especially prized for its warmth. It is also versatile, dense and durable, making it particularly suited to imitating other animals’ furs.
The muskrat entered this history in the early twentieth century, when it attracted attention in
Belgium as a promising species for fur farming. This promise was accompanied by unease. Despite official warnings about possible ecological consequences, three breeding farms were approved in 1928, including a facility in Begijnendijk. Within only two years, however, reports from abroad of rapidly expanding muskrat populations led Belgian authorities to revoke all permits. By that point, the commercial experiment had already exceeded its intended limits: animals from the Begijnendijk facility are still considered the origin of the muskrat population in Flanders.
From this local beginning, the muskrat quickly became a national problem. As the population expanded beyond Begijnendijk, the Belgian government was forced to act. In 1938, extermination of the muskrat was made mandatory by law, a measure that remains in effect today. Yet legal control did not halt its advance. By 1952, the muskrat occupied approximately 6,400 km², and within a few decades it was present throughout the entire country.
The significance of this expansion lay in the relation between animal behaviour and landscape. Native to North American rivers, marshes, and wetlands, the muskrat brought established burrowing and aquatic feeding habits into a country where much depends on carefully managed water. Its tunnels produced riverbank erosion and could weaken dikes, while its feeding on aquatic vegetation affected fish, waterfowl, and other species dependent on these habitats. The muskrat became problematic not simply as a non-native species, but because its everyday behaviours came into conflict with the carefully controlled landscapes into which it had been introduced. The animal introduced for the value of its pelt thus became consequential for reasons that lay far beyond the fur trade.
Over the following decades, muskrat control became a continuing feature of Belgian water management. Control campaigns relied on traps, snares, and later chemical agents, alongside the gradual development of a specialised network of rat catchers and water managers. The desired impact on muskrat populations was not achieved until the twenty first century. Even then, control remained an ongoing process rather than a completed intervention. The muskrat programme therefore ranks among the longest-running organism control programmes in Belgium.
In this sense, the muskrat exposes the instability of human attempts to reduce animals to resources: it entered Belgium through the fur trade, but its significance unfolded far beyond it. The case brings a central concern of this exhibition into focus: fur belongs not only to histories of fashion, commerce and display, but to a wider field of human-animal relations. Fur, then, is not only a record of animal death, but also of animal life: of movement, adaptation, and the changing environments in which human and animal histories take shape together.
Bibliography:
Becker, J. Kleine bontgids. Bussum: Van Dishoeck, 1968.
Belgische Nationale Federatie van het Bont en Kleinvel. Pels in België: Feiten en cijfers. Brussels: Belgische Nationale Federatie van het Bont en Kleinvel, 1984.
Cartuyvels, E., T. Adriaens, K. Baert, F. Huysentruyt, and J. Stuyck. Best Practice for Trapping Muskrat, Ondatra zibethicus, in Flanders. Reports of the Research Institute for Nature and Forest. Brussels: Research Institute for Nature and Forest, 2020.
CAG. “Een gevaarlijke exoot: de muskusrat.” Accessed 17 April 2026. https://cagnet.be/page/ongewenste-dieren-muskusrat.
De Vries, J. H. Bont allerlei. Amsterdam: Commissie voor de Vakopleiding in de Textielhandel, 1953.
D’Hoedt, Camille. Animaux à fourrure. Brussels: chez l’auteur, 1931.
Geeraerts-Bracops, Micheline. De strijd tegen de muskusratten. Leefmilieu series. Brussels: Gemeentekrediet van België, 1974.
Kluijver, H. N. De bisamrat. Wageningen: Plantenziektenkundige Dienst, 1937.
Natuurpunt. “Muskusrat.” Accessed March 2 2026. https://www.natuurpunt.be/soorten/zoogdieren/muskusrat.
Rymenams, Jan. “Van begijnen, eieren en muskusratten.” Hageland Verschijnsel (2022): 35–36.
Stuyck, Jan. “De muskusrat, Ondatra zibethicus, in Vlaanderen: Introductie, verspreiding en ... een jarenlange bestrijding.” Bulletin van het Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen (2002): 241–46.
Timmermans, L. Notice sur l'élevage du rat musqué. Liège: G. Thiriart.