it felt like a kiss.
this weekend, the boy and i went christmas shopping with gift certificates. mostly it was uneventful; k got a lot of new clothes, i got some kitchen-y stuff. what got to me was the sheer amount of fur everywhere this season. what's horrible about this is that fur sales are actually at an all time low, despite fur whores like J.Lo, Ralph Lauren and Anna Wintour pushing pelts on you from every angle. brooks brothers had a pair of leather gloves that were lined with real rabbit fur, all soft and snowy white. Ralph Lauren had parkas with hoods lined with coyote fur.
is it attractive? it's certainly soft, and feels a bit like my dog(rabbit fur feels more like my cat). and to be honest - that may be exactly what it is. the fur trade has routinely sold dog and cat fur as rabbit fur, as fox fur, as mink... where do these dogs and cats come from? well, mostly they come from china. china is the biggest exporter of fur in the world currently. companies pay poor street children to gather stray animals, sometimes for as little as one american dollar. they are shoved together in tiny cages, where they panic, sometimes leading to fights, broken limbs and suffocation - and that's just when they're being put in the cages.
once in the cages, sometimes in a cage as small as a 2'x2' with more than 30 cats stuffed into one cage, or more than 10 dogs in one cage the size of computer shipping box, they are loaded onto trucks, cage on top of cage. the sheer weight of these animals on top of other animals kills many of them through suffocation. the cages crush other animals, while still other animals die trying to fight their way out of the cages.
when the animals reach their destination - some desolate field in the middle of nowhere, and even busy market streets - the cages are often simply shoved off the end of the trucks, crushing limbs inside, and outside, the cages. men with sticks, or crow bars, or a number of other blunt objects, shove the animals back into their cages. the animals panic and fight with each other, they gnaw on each other's limbs. one by one the animals are taken out of their cages and beaten with sticks, stepped on until they can no longer breathe - video footage has even caught men swinging animals by their tails and smashing their heads on the ground.
these animals are sometimes merely paralyzed, or stunned, while they are being skinned alive.
and it's not just dogs and cats that are suffering. animals on fur farms everywhere meet the same and similar fates. in the wild, traps are set to catch animals like coyotes, foxes, raccoons and wolves. wandering animals are lured into them by food, or caught by surprise. they suffer while steel teeth bite into their leg's muscle and tissue, sometimes snapping the bone. many animals will panic and attempt to chew off their own limbs, before eventually tiring and bleeding to the point of death. under cover investigations have caught a fur farmer in maryland beating foxes over the head with a stick repeatedly. minks are routinely injected with a combination of water and black40, a toxin containing mostly nicotine, which slowly paralyzes the lungs and eats away at them, sometimes taking up to 15 minutes for the animals to finally die after suffering through suffocation, internal bleeding and finally, debilitating seizures. baby seals are hunted on open ice by men on snowmobiles, wielding clubs. the seals are chased down, beaten over the head, often repeatedly, while screaming.
perhaps you've heard of j.crew? recently they pulled all of their fur from the racks in protest of the chinese fur trade after an undercover investigation revealed men skinning raccoon dogs, often while they were still alive after being slammed against the earth. one video tape showed a female raccoon dog, barely clinging to life, atop a pile of bloody, skinned carcasses, fully conscious but with only enough energy to move her head side to side and blink her eyes.
some of these animals are killed needlessly, as a pelt is ruined if it gets any blood on it. this is especially true of minks. the cruel method in which they are killed often leads to seizures, during which blood gurgles up from their deteriorating lungs and seeps out of their mouths. these mink are simply tossed in the rubbage bin.
with so many synthetic alternatives to fur out there, all of these animals are dying needlessly. there is no excuse for fur.
for more information, watch these videos: chinese fur farms, canada's seal slaughter, trapping, and finally Martha Stewart and Alexis Stewart speak out about the cruelty of the fur industry. Also, visit FurIsDead.com.
if you are going to be in the new york city, baltimore, washington dc or san francisco metro areas this june, i encourage you to come out and speak out against the heinous acts of a few, to save the lives of many.
ask me for details.
is it attractive? it's certainly soft, and feels a bit like my dog(rabbit fur feels more like my cat). and to be honest - that may be exactly what it is. the fur trade has routinely sold dog and cat fur as rabbit fur, as fox fur, as mink... where do these dogs and cats come from? well, mostly they come from china. china is the biggest exporter of fur in the world currently. companies pay poor street children to gather stray animals, sometimes for as little as one american dollar. they are shoved together in tiny cages, where they panic, sometimes leading to fights, broken limbs and suffocation - and that's just when they're being put in the cages.
once in the cages, sometimes in a cage as small as a 2'x2' with more than 30 cats stuffed into one cage, or more than 10 dogs in one cage the size of computer shipping box, they are loaded onto trucks, cage on top of cage. the sheer weight of these animals on top of other animals kills many of them through suffocation. the cages crush other animals, while still other animals die trying to fight their way out of the cages.
when the animals reach their destination - some desolate field in the middle of nowhere, and even busy market streets - the cages are often simply shoved off the end of the trucks, crushing limbs inside, and outside, the cages. men with sticks, or crow bars, or a number of other blunt objects, shove the animals back into their cages. the animals panic and fight with each other, they gnaw on each other's limbs. one by one the animals are taken out of their cages and beaten with sticks, stepped on until they can no longer breathe - video footage has even caught men swinging animals by their tails and smashing their heads on the ground.
these animals are sometimes merely paralyzed, or stunned, while they are being skinned alive.
and it's not just dogs and cats that are suffering. animals on fur farms everywhere meet the same and similar fates. in the wild, traps are set to catch animals like coyotes, foxes, raccoons and wolves. wandering animals are lured into them by food, or caught by surprise. they suffer while steel teeth bite into their leg's muscle and tissue, sometimes snapping the bone. many animals will panic and attempt to chew off their own limbs, before eventually tiring and bleeding to the point of death. under cover investigations have caught a fur farmer in maryland beating foxes over the head with a stick repeatedly. minks are routinely injected with a combination of water and black40, a toxin containing mostly nicotine, which slowly paralyzes the lungs and eats away at them, sometimes taking up to 15 minutes for the animals to finally die after suffering through suffocation, internal bleeding and finally, debilitating seizures. baby seals are hunted on open ice by men on snowmobiles, wielding clubs. the seals are chased down, beaten over the head, often repeatedly, while screaming.
perhaps you've heard of j.crew? recently they pulled all of their fur from the racks in protest of the chinese fur trade after an undercover investigation revealed men skinning raccoon dogs, often while they were still alive after being slammed against the earth. one video tape showed a female raccoon dog, barely clinging to life, atop a pile of bloody, skinned carcasses, fully conscious but with only enough energy to move her head side to side and blink her eyes.
some of these animals are killed needlessly, as a pelt is ruined if it gets any blood on it. this is especially true of minks. the cruel method in which they are killed often leads to seizures, during which blood gurgles up from their deteriorating lungs and seeps out of their mouths. these mink are simply tossed in the rubbage bin.
with so many synthetic alternatives to fur out there, all of these animals are dying needlessly. there is no excuse for fur.
for more information, watch these videos: chinese fur farms, canada's seal slaughter, trapping, and finally Martha Stewart and Alexis Stewart speak out about the cruelty of the fur industry. Also, visit FurIsDead.com.
if you are going to be in the new york city, baltimore, washington dc or san francisco metro areas this june, i encourage you to come out and speak out against the heinous acts of a few, to save the lives of many.
ask me for details.