So-called high-end fashion designers in America carry fur and fur-lined garments that
often carry the label ‘Made in China’. These days those selling fur and fur-lined garments also tend to advertise more toward ethnic demographics because the ethnic population has not yet turned their backs on the fur industry.
If you look closely you will see ethnic TV stars, ethnic movie stars and ethnic music industry stars wearing most of the fur and fur-lined garments when photographed out and about town. Some of these stars are even fashion designers who still use fur in their lines of clothing.
Undercover cameras have documented how China fur farms take the fur from farm raised animals. Foxes, rabbits, minks, dogs, cats and other animals are grabbed up by their hind legs by fur farm workers then slammed head first on the ground in an attempt to kill them. Unfortunately, this often does not kill but only stuns the animal. The animals are then bludgeoned with clubs as the animals lay there screaming in pain, convulsing and shaking violently as they try to crawl away. The video shows how fur farm workers also make no attempt to make sure the animals are dead before the skinning process begins.
As the skin is ripped and peeled from their bloody bodies you hear animals screaming similar to what a baby sounds like when it screams in pain. Once the animal is skinned the body is tossed onto the dead pile where the ones still alive look up at you blinking where they die a slow, painful and horrific death.
In China there are no animal cruelty laws so anything goes. The animals are raised crammed in metal cages with no protection from driving rains or scorching sun. The animals too often go crazy from rough handling and intense confinement and can be seen throwing themselves against the walls of their cages or they huddle in their cages paralyzed with fear.
China has become the world’s largest supplier of fur thanks to cheap labor and lack of regulations. Raw fur pelts move through international auctions before ending up in other countries meaning if a fur or fur-lined garment says ‘Made in Italy’ or ‘Made in France’, in all likelihood, the animal was raised and killed, not in Italy or France, but somewhere else.
To make just one 40-inch coat from the fur-bearing animal of choice it takes 60 minks, 16 coyotes, 18 lynx, 20 otters, 42 red foxes, 40 raccoons, 8 seals or 50 sables, 20 badgers, 15 beavers, 15 bobcats, 100 chinchillas, 16 coyotes, 125 ermine or weasels, 11 lynx, 40 martens, 50 muskrats, 30 rabbits, 18 red foxes and 11 silver foxes….all to make just one pretentious fur coat from a particular species of fur-bearing animal.
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCES: CBS-TV PUBLIC EYE 3/25/98 & ANIMAL TIMES MAGAZINE FALL 2005