When you think about it…is fur fashion or faux pas?

Mink fur is often used in today’s fashion.

We see celebrities wearing the fur of chinchillas, mink, lynx, rabbit, fox, and more. We find inexpensive clothing trimmed in animal fur. We can even buy fur toys for our furry companion animals made of another animal’s skin. Wouldn’t it be more compassionate to see the fur on the original owner? Fur is not a fashion statement. Rather it is a statement that the wearer does not know of the plight of animals killed for their skin or doesn’t care that extreme suffering went into creating their fashion. Fur is torture; fur is frightening; fur is death. Show your respect for fur by making sure you never wear the coat of another living, breathing, sentient being. Fur is never fashion; it’s not even faux pas. When you think about it… fur is fatal.

Travel Article Should not Glorify Killing

Trapping wild animals like this marmot for the fur trade is simply barbaric!

Glorifying fur trapping is barbaric. Few would expect, therefore, to find an article in a travel magazine that does just that. AFAR Magazine recently published a story on Quebec City by travel journalist Jennifer Kahn in which she glorifies fur trapping and marvels at pelts from beavers, wolves, ermines, and lynx.

Millions of animals are trapped and killed each year for their skins and fur—animals sacrificed so their bodies can be used as fashion statements. No animal should be sacrificed for fashion.

Trappers use one of three types of traps: the most popular is the steel-jaw leghold trap, but the Conibear® and snare traps are also used. Not one of these trapping methods is considered humane; not one of them instantly kills the trapped animal; and not one of these traps should still be used in today’s society. Animals caught in any of these traps are ensnared in excruciating pain until the trapper returns to bludgeon, suffocate, or shoot the animal before skinning him or her.

Hours could pass, or days, or sometimes even weeks before a trapper returns to check the traps. Many times, the entangled animals die from exposure to extreme weather, predation, or starvation. Desperate, panicking animals have been known to break bones, including legs, backs, and necks trying to escape. Some—particularly mothers—attempt to chew off their legs in an attempt to return home to their babies.

Please send a polite note to the magazine expressing your concern about their carrying a story that glorifies the killing of animals for fashion. Suggest, instead, they carry stories of wild animals in their natural setting as that is the humane way to enjoy the coats of beavers, wolves, ermines, lynx, and other fur-bearing animals.

Ellen Asmodeo-Giglio, Executive Vice President
Bryan Kinkade, Vice President
AFAR Magazine
25 W. 45th St, Suite 1208
New York, NY 10036
Tele. No.: 646-430-9880
Fax: 212-382-3559
E-mail: ellen@afar.com
E-mail: bryan@afar.com

Will Canada end seal hunting?

Seal clubbing is anathema to a humane and civilized people.

Canada has the opportunity to end commercial seal slaughter today. Canadian senator Mac Harb has introduced S 210, an Act to Amend the Fisheries Act (commercial seal fishing). This bill would disallow the issuance of commercial licenses for seal fishing except for those issued to aboriginal organizations or to persons who have a claims agreement.

With markets declining in both Europe and Russia, the price of seal pelts has decreased and the commercial industry is worth only a fraction of what it once was. While those are economic reasons for ending the commercial slaughter of Canadian seals, the humane reasons should not be overlooked. Thousands of baby seals are clubbed to death annually. Such slaughter should never be condoned. Hunting, for other than subsistence reasons , is anathema to a humane and civilized people.

Canadian citizens, please contact you legislators and let them know you support Senator Harb’s bill, S 210. Readers not in Canada should also contact legislators to make them aware that anti-seal hunting sentiments are worldwide.

West Hollywood Finalizes Fur Ban

Paws Up!

To the West Hollywood City Council for finalizing a ban on the sale of fur all retail stores within their municipality.

The City Council of West Hollywood tentatively adopted a ban of the sale of fur products earlier this year on September 20, but the matter was complicated by stiff opposition from the fur industry and the area Chamber of Commerce. According to a news article, “The five-member City Council of the tiny, tony municipality wedged between Beverly Hills and Hollywood voted 3-to-1 with one abstention to endorse the ordinance, which would take effect in 2013, said City Councilman John Heilman, who voted ‘no.’”

Photo by Oikeutta Elaimille/Flickr

Over 30 million animals are raised in captivity and killed for their fur each year, and 10 million or more are trapped and killed from the wild. Minks, chinchillas, foxes, rabbits, even dogs and cats are kept in confinement to harvest their pelts. While living in such small spaces, they often develop chronic pacing behaviors in their cages known as stereotypies, commonly develop habits of self-injury, and suffer an unnaturally stressful living environment. The stress of mass confinement for animals such as foxes can even lead them to exhibit cannibalism.

It is important that we work to cultivate an awareness of the products we use and if they contain animal products. Often, fur invokes the thought of a expensive fur coat, but animal pelts are frequently used to trim and line bags, gloves, upholstery, and other accessories and apparel. Check labels to verify that products contain all man-made or non-leather materials, as sometimes cheap-seeming fur that can appear fake is often low grade far from substandard fur farms.

Take Action: Join us in observing Fur-Free Friday by taking a stand against fur this Friday after Thanksgiving and pledging not to purchase fur and other products containing animal pelts now and throughout the year. Write a letter of thanks to the West Hollywood City Council to applaud the new precedent they have set for compassionate legislation, and write legislators in your district and urge them to introduce similar legislation in your area.

Mayor John J. Duran
West Hollywood City Council
(323) 848-6460
Email: ccouncil@weho.org

Sources:
Reuters
Time Magazine

Fur Flies off the Runway

Paws Up!
To Seoul, South Korea, for forcing fur off the catwalk at next month’s fashion event.

According to a recent news story, “Seoul is forcing Italian fashion house Fendi to leave fur off the catwalk of its largest show in Asia due to protests.”

Fur belongs on the animal for whom it is a natural covering and not on the bodies of runway models. Fur is not a fashion statement; it is a death sentence to millions of animals either farm raised and slaughtered or trapped in the wild.

Take Action: The most important action you can take is to never wear fur, either as a full garment or trim. In addition, you can write to the ambassador from South Korea to the United States, letting him know you applaud Seoul’s decision to keep fur off the fashion runway.

The Honorable Han Duk-soo
Ambassador
South Korean Embassy
2450 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20008-2850
Tele. No.: 202-939-5600

Source:
washingtonpost.com/

No Fur Here

Photo by Kjell Bjørnstad

The City of West Hollywood, California, is going fur-free, the first city in the United States to do so. The city council passed an ordinance which would ban the sale of fur in the city limits. Millions of animals are trapped and killed each year for their skins and fur—animals sacrificed so their bodies can be used as fashion statements, lining the jackets of runway models and trimming the edges of designer clothing. Additionally, millions of animals are slaughtered on fur farms for the same purpose. Thankfully, the creation of synthetic materials long ago eliminated humanity’s dependence on fur for protection from the elements.

California citizens, write a letter of thanks to the West Hollywood City Council and then write your own city council, county council, and state legislators and ask them to follow West Hollywood’s lead.

John D’Amico
West Hollywood City Council
8300 Santa Monica Boulevard
West Hollywood, CA 90069

When you think about it…are dead animals fashionable?

Photo by A. Declerk

What exactly is meant by the “height of fashion”? If it involves fur, feathers, silk, wool, skins, it’s not the “height” of anything but rather the “depth” of death.

Fashion Week is an industry event held anywhere designers want to showcase their creations. Most notably are the fashion weeks in London, Paris, Milan, and New York. During these week-long events, we learn what’s “in” and what’s “out” for the season. Too often what’s in should be out—permanently.

Showcasing the bodies of animals draped over shoulders, slung around necks, wrapped around ankles should never be considered the “in” thing. Killing living, breathing, sentient beings so they can be worn in the form of full length fur coats, alligator boots, leather pant suits, etc., should be beneath the likes of designers like Giorgio Armani and Donna Karan who once pledged to go fur-free but seem to have lost their way.

Instead of “increase[ing] ethical values in fashion” as the general manager of the Oslo Fashion Week Paul Vasbotten stated when it was announced that Norway would become the first country in the world to ban fur on its runways during its fashion week, some designers continue to glamorize the death of living, breathing, sentient beings.

If the fashion industry is all about glamour and glitz, why does it dip its hands into blood and gore? When you think about it…how luxurious is a fur coat once you know the animals who make up the pelts were anally or vaginally electrocuted so as to protect the fur draped around your body? How elegant are thigh high crocodile boots when you learn these animals are bludgeoned to death to get their skin or the snake skin belt around your waist acquired by skinning the snake alive? Fashion week should reign with fun, extravagance, innovation—not be drenched in violence and death.

West Hollywood May Become Fur-Free

Photo by Kjell Bjørnstad

The city council of West Hollywood, California, is debating whether to become the nation’s first fur-free city. NHES opposes the killing of animals for their fur. We believe that no compelling reasons exist to subject these animals to pain, suffering, and death when viable clothing alternatives exist. Whether wild caught or fur-farmed, the animals experience all that is horrible about confinement. If caught in leghold traps, they have been known to chew their own limbs off in order to escape. Animals living in fur farms suffer extreme distress as the farm environment does not adequately provide for their physical, psychological, and emotional needs. Wildlife in fur farms are typically slaughtered by suffocation, beating, or anal/vaginal electrocution.

If you live in West Hollywood, contact your city council members immediately. Residents of other areas, contact your local city and county councils and urge the members to follow West Hollywood’s example.