Fur
Fact Sheet
www.WorldAnimalFoundation.com
The real price of fur must be measured in deaths, not dollars. To make 1 fur coat you must kill at least:
55 Wild Minks, 35 Ranch Minks, 40 Sables, 11 Lynx, 18 Red Foxes, 11 Silver Foxes, 100 Chinchillas, 30 Rex Rabbits, 9 Beavers, 30 Muskrats, 15 Bobcats, 25 Skunks, 14 Otters, 125 Ermines, 30 Possums, 100 Squirrels, or 27 Raccoons.
Every year, a well-organized fur trade spends millions to glamorize the fur coat and to mask the real price of fur - pain, mutilation and death for millions of animals.
But as more people see the truth about fur, growing numbers of furriers are going bankrupt. Out of style, less practical than alternatives, and increasingly seen as offensive, a fur coat bought this year will be worthless a few years later.
That's why you'll see more and more fur on sale...but remember the real price of fur. Don't throw your money away. Don't throw animals' lives away. Already, millions of innocent animals have been saved from cruel deaths because a compassionate public refused to buy the furriers' bill of goods. Actual fur sales have decreased from $1.35 billion in 1990 to $648 million in 1993. The number of US retail locations in 1993 alone fell from 192 to 46, and fur apparel imports dropped a staggering 48% in 1995. A February 1994 issue of The Trapper noted that, "from Alaska to Maine the number of those trapping, fur hunting and buying fur has plummeted to the lowest level yet recorded." This trend has already saved millions of animals - but the anguish continues for millions of others....
The Agony of The Trap
Animals caught in a hidden steel jaw trap will suffer a slow, excruciating death. These animals often freeze to death, or are attacked by predators. Many will frantically chew off their own legs to escape. If they are still alive when the trapper returns to the scene, they will be bludgeoned or strangled.
"Hit the trapped animal just forward of the eyes with the stick. While it is unconscious, use your knee or the heel of your shoe to come down hard behind the front leg. This ruptures the heart, and the coyote never regains consciousness." "Fur Trapping: A Complete Guide," B. Musgrove & G. Blair
Can any of this barbaric cruelty be justified for a luxury item?
The leghold trap is indiscriminate as well as cruel. Trappers discard millions of "trash animals" not wanted for their fur, including domestic pets and endangered species. Trapped animals sometimes leave behind dependent young who are doomed to starvation.
The Horror of the Ranch
Raising animals on ranches for their fur is no less cruel. These animals are kept in close confinement and deprived of a natural life, until finally they are killed...by gassing, or suffocation, or electrocution through the mouth and anus so that the "product" is not singed or stained with blood. Far from being "humane," fur ranching is characterized by barren cages, isolation and environmental deprivation so intense that animals often go insane.
Nothing Natural About Fur
Furriers, desperate for positive things to say about their product, often resort to the claim that furs are "natural." But in fact, turning an animal's skin into a coat involves preserving it with toxic chemicals like formaldehyde, a known carcinogen.
While fake fur is made from petroleum-derived synthetics, even more petroleum is used to produce real fur. A study by Ford Motors showed that an average wild-trapped fur coat required 3.6 times more energy to be produced than a fake fur, while a ranched fur required a staggering 66 time more energy than a fake!
Furriers claim that fur trapping is necessary tool for wildlife management. But trapping as a commercial enterprise can never be a wildlife management strategy. Wildlife management is based on highly specific local circumstances. But the book "Fur Trapping: A Complete Guide" suggests a completely different basis:
"The trapper should trap the fur most in demand. If bobcats bring a high of $400, as they did in 1976, he should concentrate on them."
Is this wildlife management - or slaughter for profit?
Wildlife populations follow natural fluctuation curves. Unchecked hunting and trapping of certain animals have disrupted these fluctuations. The furriers' and trappers' dangerously unscientific claims to be "managing" wildlife are a thinly disguised ploy in their own interest - not that of wild animals.
Fur: Once a symbol of glamour and success, is now the symbol of Insensitivity, Vanity, and Greed.
Top fashion models like Claudia Schiffer, Kate Moss, and Cindy Crawford are saying NO to fur. Famous designer such as Giorgio Armani, Donna Karan, Geoffrey Beene and Calvin Klein now exclude fur from their collections. Leading retailers including Harrods of London and I. Magnin have stopped selling furs altogether.
The choice is yours. You can express your respect for all life...or your commitment to a dead fashion.
