Fur the Sake of a Coat.

As Sweden looks to vote on whether to have an outright ban on fur farms, previously fox farms were banned, fur has hit the catwalks again ready for the autumn/fall season. Celebrities who have been off the radar recently have been seen to be endorsing the skin of farmed animals. Who knows what has possessed them to make this decision, let’s hope it isn’t just to make the headlines in order to revive their careers. Brooke Shields and Janet Jackson, to name but a few, have been seen not just wearing, but advertising fur.

Animals farmed for fur are kept in tiny cages, similar to those in puppy mills, which for solitary animals, such as mink, this can be psychologically damaging, leading to stereotypical behaviour such as self-mutilation (biting off one’s own paws and limbs).

We know how the animals are drowned, gassed or electrocuted to death, you can’t slit the animal’s throat, gash wounds do not look too good on a wolf skin coat. If you haven’t seen the footage, you can watch the trailer for the latest documentary, Skin Trade, which highlights the gruesome methods used.

However, the age old fur trade it hitting back, ‘fur is green’ is the new slogan often used to justify butchering animals for luxury fashion items. The Fur Council of Canada implies that without the fur industry’s trapping of wild animals for fur there would be a population boom and ‘Nature’ would not be able to support the surplus animals and even rabies would be rife. Tell that to the beavers in the UK.

As for the welfare of farmed animals, the Council says that ”the optimal standards for the nutrition, housing, husbandry and euthanasia of farmed-raised mink and fox are set out in Recommended Codes of Practice developed by Agriculture Canada,” this is not a law, and is only a guideline. The Council goes on to state that, “there is a strong incentive to respect these codes because there is no other way to produce high quality fur; farmers who do not care for their animals will not remain in business very long.”

With all due respect to the Council, I highly doubt that Janet Jackson and Kanye West visited the intensively farmed animals and hand-picked which ones would be killed for their coat.

“Fur has become the texture of the moment.” Fur is not a texture. It is the skin of an animal that has been ripped from its body while it was still warm and often still alive. Fur was worn in the Stone Ages because it was the only source of warmth available. Today, there are plenty of ecological friendly materials that can be worn. Fur is tacky, and trashy. Even if it is ‘looked after’ it will smell eventually.

Brooke Shields and Cruella de Ville: Two women who like to wear fur. Any resemblance is purely coincidental

Like shark’s fin soup, once a symbol of wealth, it is so readily available, mass produced so cheaply, anyone can afford it. You just have to come across to Asia to see how cheap both products can be produced.

Source: PETA files. Fur Free and fabulous!

These women have denounced fur, and their careers are still going strong, Brooke.

Animals used in Entertainment: Cheap Laughs?

A recent car advert features cars driving out from under a tent, with fan fare music and streamers. OK, just another normal car advert right? Well, no, unfortunately Dodge decided that to make the advert even more ‘exciting’ they had to use a ‘monkey’ in the advert. Someone should have pointed out that in fact, chimps, as this was the animal they used in the advert, are apes.

The chimp appears dressed up in an Elvis style suit and is on the screen for a total of 3 seconds, just to walk on, and push a plunger. His appearance is the punch line of the advert, but was completely unnecessary.



In another advert, Old Navy is advertising their new jeans range, the advert features human mannequins having their jean style fortune told. At the end of the advert a capuchin bangs a gong. Again, the capuchin is only on the screen for 3-4 seconds.



There really is no need for animals, including chimps and other primates to be used for adverts and films. Technology is so advanced now that real animals do not need to be used in film.

Everyone knows orang utans are endangered, usually when you see a picture of an orang utan, it is attached to an organisation, and it is a similar story with gorillas. However, a lot of people do not realise that chimps are endangered, mainly because, especially in the west, chimps are seen on TV advertising products.

In the UK, possibly the most famous chimps are the Tipps family, from the PG Tips adverts, which ran from the 1950’s to the 1990’s. These adverts were inspired by London Zoo’s chimp tea parties. The adverts featured chimps moving pianos, motor racing, usually with a slap stick part of the advert that ended with the chimps dressed as humans having a cup of tea at the end. Thankfully, PG Tips has ended these adverts, and now has a comedian, Jonny Vegas, and a stuffed chimp called Monkey instead.

Chimps and wild animals used in entertainment, in circuses, films, adverts and photography sessions are ripped from their mothers from a very young age, could you imagine trying to train a fully grown chimp? If he doesn’t want to wear that hat, he won’t wear that hat. The psychological damage is phenomenal, and usually ends tragically, when the chimp is too old to be used any more he is usually discarded at a roadside zoo or turned into a pet.

Times have changed, and there are now more humane ways of training animals to do things, but the fact still remains that physical punishment is a well used method of training animals; you just have to look at PETA's campaign on Ringling Brothers circus elephants to see that.

The fact still remains that these are wild animals, and they should be given the opportunity to behave as such, not forced to act out silly dramas, even if it is a 30 minute program, or a 3 second advert, the animals will be going home to live in a cage until the next time they are needed, they are not given the opportunity to act as they would in the wild.

So, yes, maybe it doesn’t physically harm a chimp to push a plunger down for a few seconds, but the journey he would have taken from being born and being cradled by his mother, to a young chimp acting in an unknown environment would have caused him cataclysmic damage. The concept of being demeaned is a very human one, but when dressing animals up and parading them around leads people to be uneducated and misinformed about the basic needs of an animal, advertisers need to address what is really important; getting a cheap laugh, or business ethics.

Why not send an email to Dodge and Old Navy, politely asking them not to use wild animals to promote their products again?

Besides, you can still get a laugh with a man in a gorilla suit playing Phil Collins.