Number of Animals Used to Make ONE Average Lenght Fur Coat

125 Ermine

100 Chinchillas

  70 Sables

  50 Minks (female)

  30 Minks (male)

  30 Canadian Fishers

  30 Muskrats

  30 Opossums

  30 Rabbits

  27 Raccoons

  17 Badgers

  14 Otters

  11 Silver Fox

  11 Lynx

    9 Beaver

 

The Leghold Trap

Every year some 10 million animals are trapped in the wild for their fur, caught by leghold traps, body grip traps (Conibear trap) and wire snares. The leghold trap is by far the most common type of trap used (around 75% of the total 'wild harvest' in both Canada and the USA is caught by leghold traps). 88 countries have banned the use of the leghold trap because of its cruelty. Banned in England and Wales since 1958 the leghold trap is a barbaric device. These steel traps work by clamping the animal’s leg, biting deep into the flesh. The victims may have to wait a long time, growing weaker and weaker through pain and attempts to escape, before the trapper returns to kill them. Bullets are not used to kill, as this would damage the pelt. Instead, the animal will be clubbed or suffocated. Many chew their legs off in a an attempt to escape the suffering. In their struggle they will cause other injuries, such as broken bones and teeth. These traps have remained largely unchanged for more than a hundred years. In 1863 Charles Darwin said of them: ‘It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the suffering thus endured from fear, from acute pain, maddened by thirst, and by vain attempts to escape’.

 

There have been plenty of studies into the effect of leghold traps, and all reveal the cruelty inherent in this device. The two metal jaws of the trap slam shut on the animals paw when they stand on it. Although the initial impact of the trap causes injury it is the attempts to escape the trap that cause major damage. The trapped animal, in desperate attempts to escape, will rip her flesh, break bones, sever muscles and tendons, knock out teeth as she bites the trap, even chew off the trapped limb. Here are the results of just a few of the studies into leghold traps: A study in Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge over a 4 year period found that 27.6% of mink, 24% of racoon, and 26% of trapped fox would bite off their limbs in hopes of surviving. Most probably died of blood loss, infection, and inability to hunt with an amputated leg. A 1980 study found that 37% of racoons mutilated themselves when caught in a leghold trap. A Swedish trapping campaign, conducted shortly before leghold traps were banned, found that of 645 trapped foxes 514 were seriously injured. Over 200 of the foxes had knocked out teeth as they bit the trap. Some of the foxes had knocked out 18 teeth, consider how desperate they must have been to escape that trap.

 

 

 

Slaughterhouses

In the Philippines, investigators visited a cat slaughterhouse where as many as 100 cats are killed and skinned in one day. The animals here were killed primarily for their skin rather than fur, but the suffering is the same. Only male cats are used as the nipples of female cats reduces the usable size of the skin. This has led to a scarcity of male cats in the cities where the slaughterhouses are located, so collectors have to drive to distant cities to round up the cats. Some of the animals are strays, while most are stolen pets. The cats are stuffed into sacks and driven for up to 6 hours without food or water to the slaughterhouse. Investigators witnessed cats hung from the neck by ropes, while other cats watched helplessly. Videos and photos also show young children helping in the slaughterhouse.

The involvement of children appears to be common, as when police in the Philippines raided the home of a woman in September 1999 who had been killing cats for their fur. They found that she was using children to round up and kill the animals. Police found the remains of butchered cats as well as live cats in bamboo cages. The home owner's business apparently exported the cat’s fur to Japan (where it was used as lining for boots, purses and coats) and sold the flesh as meat to be ground into sausage.

 

Labelling

It is clear that cat and dog fur does not usually get labelled as such. Fur traders told investigators that any label could be put in any garment or fur product, depending on the preference of the buyer. According to the HSUS: ‘in other words, the company supplying the fur was perfectly willing to label dog or cat fur as being fur from some other species presumably more acceptable to consumers’.

A German importer told investigators that the export of cat and dog furs to the US wasn't a problem, explaining that it was just a question of what the product is called. Cat fur is known by several names: house cat, wild cat, katzenfelle, goyangi and mountain cat. Dog fur may be labelled as: gae-wolf, goupee, or sobaki, among other names, while dog skin is often referred to as special skin, lamb skin or mountain goat skin.

Dog and cats skins are used for a variety of products, such as bed sheets, golf gloves, handbags and rheumatism aids. In some countries the furs are on open sale, in Germany cat fur pelts, jackets and throws are on open sale in petrol stations.

And Mary J. Blige, she's got all these fur coats and hats and stuff. She's good; I like her. Bryan Ferry

For as long as I can remember I’ve abhorred fur. My first ever job was as a Saturday girl in a well known high street clothes store. I was 15 and it gave me my first real taste of independence.   The discount at the shop meant I was the best dressed girl in school, and the money meant I could afford cigarettes and alcohol which made me the most popular.

Many an hour was whiled away on the local village green smoking fags, drinking gin and talking about moving to London and marrying a pop star. George Michael would be mine!

 

All that changed over a fur coat. One day a guy came into the shop to buy his wife a birthday present. After a bit of shopping around he decided on a very expensive fur coat, one of those disgusting full length numbers, and asked me to serve him. When I refused, he demanded to know why. What followed was an in depth discussion on the evils of fur and the fur trade. He was a nice guy, just ignorant of the inherent cruelty involved in the production of fur, and after about fifteen minutes he decided against buying the coat, and left both empty handed and enlightened. I was elated.

 

It proved to be short lived. My manager had been listening the whole time and in front of everyone in the shop summarily sacked me and ordered me off the premises (the old witch never did pay me the money I was owed). It was a little humiliating but I wasn’t that bothered. I’d done the right thing and left with a clear conscience. In hindsight I probably shouldn’t have been working there in the first place, being as they sold fur and all, but how else does a 15 year old keep herself in fags and booze? My life changed dramatically. I no longer had my independence and had to go back to relying on handouts from my parents. It was the first, but not the last, time my position on animal cruelty has cost me dearly.

 

Flash forward twenty years. The shop in question now has a fur free policy, hooray. I still despise fur and campaign against it regularly. And you’re probably aware that for one reason or another I never did get to marry George Michael. Oh well. Janet Lynch

 

Mink Farming

Due to campaigns by anti-fur groups the farming of animals 'solely or primarily for their fur' was banned in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland from 1st January 2003. Meanwhile, millions of animals continue to be killed around the world for their fur. The majority of these animals are mink, raised on fur factory farms.

 

Mink are wild solitary animals, whose life on fur farms is reduced by the farmer to that of a walking fur coat. Fur farms totally suppress any natural behavioural instincts of the mink, resulting in self-mutilation, cannibalism and psychotic behaviour.

 

Recommended cages sizes for mink are 38cm wide by 30.5cm high by 61cm long, but many are considerably smaller. Some have likened the floor area of the cage to the size of two shoe-boxes. These are bare wire cages, usually but not always with a wooden nest box (rarely with any straw bedding) attached. The partially webbed feet of the mink mean that walking on the coarse, wide mesh is uncomfortable; not that they can actually walk far. Cages are usually not even high enough to allow the animals to stand fully upright, which mink do to sniff the air to scent prey or danger.

 

Mink are not domesticated animals. Mink farming was introduced to Britain in 1929, and no captive line is older than 100 years old. Compare this to the 12,000 years of domestication of the dog, or 7,000 years for the chicken, and 4,000 for the pig, and you can see why the Government's Farm Animal Welfare Council said it was "particularly concerned about the keeping of what are essentially wild animals in small barren cages."

 

Access to water is essential for the well being of mink. In the wild they have a territory of up to 4km along a waterway, using it both for hunting prey such as fish and water fowl, and for travelling. They spend 60% of their active time in water. Access to water plays an important part in the life and development of mink. The only water mink get on fur farms is drinking water, through a rubber pipe. Even this most basic of requirements is denied by the farmers whose only motive is profit.

 

Mink are solitary creatures. In the wild they strongly defend their territories and only come into contact with other mink in order to mate. On the fur farm each mink is imprisoned in a row of cages. Each row may hold over 100 cages, two rows to a shed. These solitary animals are forced to live in close sight, smell and sound of thousands of others. They are also often forced to live several to a cage.

 

It is no surprise that these conditions force the animals into displaying unnatural patterns of behaviour. As with animals confined in zoos, farmed mink display signs of psychotic behaviour. Virtually all the mink's activity in the wild is dictated by its requirements for survival and reproduction. Caged mink show all four of the recognised types of abnormal behaviour, such as self-injury and stereotyped behaviour (constant pacing or circling of the cage, gnawing bars, etc). Wild mink exhibit none of these. Self-mutilation is common, and according to a Government report into fur farming in the Netherlands, 10 to 20% of farmed mink cause injury to themselves, such as pelt and tail biting, and others have put this figure as high as 30%. Cannibalism is another common behaviour, and has been caught on film by anti-fur investigators.

 

Mink are mated in early March and litters of kits are usually born in the first two weeks of May. The level of infertility on British mink farms is high, and females reach their highest fertility at 2-3 years old. Kit mortality is high, with 9 to 12% being born dead or dying within 3 weeks of birth. By November or December, when the young's winter coat is fully grown, they are pelted at just 7 or 8 months of age. The most common methods of killing mink is by gassing with carbon monoxide from a vehicle exhaust, and gassing with carbon dioxide.

 

Cat and Dog Fur

Hanging by the neck from a wire noose, water is poured down their throat through a hose until they drown. Many are skinned while still alive. This is just one of the horrific scenes captured on video by investigators from the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) as they infiltrated the cat and dog fur industry in China, Thailand and the Philippines. Cats and dogs that were once someone's pets, rounded up, transported in sacks and crates. Some are held in dingy, dark unheated buildings during the bitter winter of northern China, often without food or water.

 

The 18-month undercover investigation discovered that the trade in cat and dog fur is far bigger than was ever previously believed, the HSUS has revealed that more than 2 million of these domestic animals are abused and killed by the international fur trade each year. And this sick trade isn't just something that happens in far off lands, at least one company in Britain recently traded openly in the furs of these animals.

 

Infiltrating this industry, the HSUS and German investigative reporter Manfred Karremann filmed and photographed the whole sordid business from start to finish, exposing how the trade is inextricably linked to the rest of the fur industry. Cat and dog fur products were found by the HSUS in several countries across Europe as well as the USA, and according to the HSUS ‘fur auction house employees said that some of their customers come from the US, though most are from Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain’.

 

These animals end up as gloves, coats, hats or fur trim; their skins are used in the production of drums and other musical instruments. Some of the animals are raised on breeding farms, mostly in northern China where the colder climate enhances the quality and thickness of the animals' coats. Anywhere from 5 to 300 dogs are kept on dog farms; up to 70 cats are kept on the cat farms. Not all the animals come from these breeding centres; some Chinese families keep a few cats or dogs and kill them when the annual slaughter season begins. Long-haired cats are kept as pets in China. Short-haired cats, especially grey cats or orange tabbies, are kept outside, generally tethered by wire, and raised for their fur. Estimates are that about half a million cats are killed each season, from October to February.

 

Investigators visited fur companies where they were told 50,000 cat skins and the same number of dog skins were in stock. One claimed to have as many as 100,000 cat skins in its factory. The furs are made into coats that are virtually indistinguishable from fur such as mink or fox, and are on display with furs from other animals.

 

Referring to the similarities between domestic cat and dog fur, and fur from other species, a HSUS spokesperson said ‘We can consider all fur trim to be suspect’, adding, ‘consumers have to be vigilant’ and report suspicious items. The president of a German company prominent in the cat fur trade is quoted as saying: ‘When cat fur is dyed it is not easily distinguished from other furs’. Around 24 cats are required to make a fur coat, and 10 to 12 dogs. This number is obviously higher if kittens and puppies are used.

 

Seal Hunting

Commercial seal hunting has existed for centuries, reaching a peak in the late 19th century. In 1899 33 million seals were slaughtered in Canada, primarily newborn pups 'whitecoats' - (young harp seals), and 'bluebacks' - (young hooded seals). This resulted in a massive decline in the seal population.

 

It was not until 1964 that the anti-sealing movement started, focusing on the cruelty issues and receiving widespread media coverage. Due to public pressure, in 1983 the European community, which had been importing nearly 75% of Canadian seal pelts, banned products from ‘whitecoats’ and ‘bluebacks’ and the market collapsed. In the USA the Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits the import, export, sale or possession of any marine mammal product (with a few exemptions for small native hunts).

 

In 1987 the Canadian federal government banned the commercial hunt for ‘whitecoats’. As a result of this and the collapse in the pelt market, kills did not meet the government quotas, which remained just below 200,000 seals. However the introduction of a seal meat subsidy in 1995 caused the official number of seals killed to rise sharply again in 1996 to nearly 250,000. In reality total kills are much higher than government figures suggest. This is because government ‘landed catch’ statistics do not take account of approximately 80,000 seals of the same population killed in the Greenland hunt, seals wounded that escape and will subsequently die or seals incidentally caught in fishing nets.

 

In 1995 Norway killed 2600 seals just over two weeks old under the pretext of scientific research. This acted as the reopening of the Norwegian seal hunt which had been crippled by the European Community ban on ‘whitecoat’ and ‘blueback’ seal products. In 1996 27,000 seals were killed by Norway, of which 17,000 were young seals. Commercial seal hunting also takes place in Greenland, Russia and Namibia, with varying numbers of seals being killed.

 

Markets

There is next to no market now for any seal part, the flesh is reported to be unpalatable (much of it is used to feed other animals on fur factory farms) and there is a glut of seal pelts. According to the Canadian Sealers Association, this glut is because the number of seals killed in the past few years has grown at an incredible rate, outpacing market demand. Some revenue comes from seal oil and seal penises as aphrodisiacs in some parts of Asia. Both these aspects have been highlighted in campaigns, by trying to stop the sale of seal oil and campaigns in Asia against the use of seal penises. Typically seals killed for penises have their genitals cut off leaving the body to rot.

 

Cruelty

Animal protection campaigners gather footage of the Canadian hunt each year, which consistently shows that methods of killing are cruel; there are many violations of what regulations do exist and numerous other abuses not addressed by Canadian law. Video evidence shows that some seals were skinned alive and many others were either wounded by gunfire, left writhing in agony for several minutes after being clubbed, caught on sharpened steel hooks or clubbed to death with illegal weapons. Government internal reports show that approximately 8 out of 10 seals are just days or weeks old; they can only be killed legally at an age of 12 days.