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.

Animal Abuse in the Media

The recent video of a young woman throwing week old puppies into a river, has horrified all who have watched it.

Hopefully the video is a fake (like the recent fox killings), but watching the squirming and yelping puppies in her hands before she throws them into the river appears to be the Real McCoy.

Sadly, drowning puppies and kittens in rivers has been a method of ‘population control’ for years, especially on farms. In fact, poet Seamus Heaney even wrote an entire poem about growing up where drowning kittens was common place.

The reason for the outcry? The media. With the internet now accessible to almost everyone, videos and pictures depicting animal cruelty are available everywhere.
Recently, a facebook group which tortured and murdered animals and then posted the videos on the group was removed. On the internet, you can find crush videos (videos showing young women in stilettos squashing animals with their feet), animals being tortured and videos depicting animals being hunted. An American court has even placed protection on these videos, as they come under the First Amendment, namely, the freedom of speech.

However, the coverage of these videos means it has been possible in some cases to identify the person in the video. In the case of the woman who bizarrely dumped a cat in a wheelie bin outside a home, only because the cats’ owners placed the video on the internet were people able to identify her. The police and RSPCA are now looking at prosecuting Mary Bale.

Hopefully, with the wide coverage of the puppy deaths, someone out there will be able to identify her, and hopefully the country she resides in, has strong animal welfare laws. What is most horrifying about this video; is the sheer pleasure she seems to take in throwing the defenceless pups into the water.

Whilst publishing this post, a sanctuary goat was brutally mutilated; hopefully the internet sleuths can focus on finding out who tortured this poor animal, who had to be euthanized because of his extensive injuries.