A LOOPHOLE in European law intended to conserve wild hamsters is being exploited by a lively export trade in their skins for clothes and fashion accessories.

Tanned hamster skins - whose uses include making pillows, jacket linings and fishing flies - are being sold by an American mail order company, whose website advertises pelts from £7.50 to £10.20 for larger, foot-long skins.

Wild hamsters have been designated an endangered species under European Union law since 1990 but Hungary and Poland are among a number of east European countries that won an exemption from the ban on hunting.

Wild field hamsters, which are slightly larger than those cherished by schoolchildren as pets, are so common in some of these countries that they are regarded by farmers as a pest.

An American company, Chichester, based in Niagara, New York state, said last week that it could supply up to 400 hamster skins to the UK.

Chichester says it has stocked hamster skins caught in the Hungarian countryside since 2003. Paul Crosby, the firm’s director, said: “They are wild skins – most often caught by gypsies. I deal directly with a small firm which does excellent quality.” He said the prime hamster hunting season is from October to November.

Crosby said the pelts are taken to Budapest, Hungary’s capital, for tanning and most of the skins are sold to the garment trade.

He claimed the firm complies with all EU and US laws and denied violating the “spirit” of the hamster ban. He added that it was the responsibility of overseas customers to verify what furs they can buy under local laws.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “Hungarian hamsters are not covered under EU law.”

Times Recommends

• 'New York has lost its edge'
• Copenhagen will fail – and quite right too
• More than 17,000 new underwater species found