Alter Ego speaking: The truth behind animal abuse. Part one: Fur Farming.

Meanwhile in China.

Now isn't that a cute little picture. It's dead foxes and look, some ~~asshole~~ Lollywood star or your mother is going to be wearing them soon.

Isn't that nice?


Later that same day...in China.

Oh look it's the skins of foxes and dogs and minks and bunnies and...other animals that have fur.

Isn't that nice?

Donna Karan, Autumn 2011.

Oh look, it's models for Donna Karan. I wonder which animals they are wearing.

I took a tram to the city centre today. At some point I noticed that a fur collar was 'rubbing itself' right in my face. Suddenly I felt this awful rage build up inside of me and I wanted to punish that old woman, scream that she was a bloody murderer for wearing fur. Winter is tough time...off all the fur accessories and trims I saw today, around 60% was real and 40% faux.

This entry will be tough for me. I had to research a subject that I loathe and want to cure the world from. Fur is murder, there is no denying it and the only way we could rid the world of animal murder for fashion's sake is when everyone stops demaning more fur. If nobody would buy fur, designers wouldn't be featuring fur designs and there wouldn't be fur shops. I have no idea what these old hags and rich-bitches (and occasional male rappers) are thinking when they buy fur. Do they think that wearing butchered animal's skin is cool and so beautiful? Is it a vanity thing? It must be because we really don't need fur to keep us warm for Christ's sake! We've got warm jackets that no animal suffered to make. If one won't wear one's dog, why would one wear fox? If one wouldn't butcher one's cat why would one have mink butchered for one? What difference is there between my pet and an innocent animal? They both have fur and still people are perfectly happy to have an animal unknown to be butchered so that they can wear its skin. Ever thought they could use the money more wisely than spend it on someone else's skin?

The reason I'm writing this entry is to spread awareness of what goes down in fur farms. It'll be as tough to read is it is for me to write. I know my friend's won't believe this, but I am a very sensitive person. This subject breaks my heart and I can't shake the metal images of those innocent animals suffering and dying in vain in farms. I'm not going to spare anybody's feelings because fur business is awful and reprehensible. By knowing how much these animals have to suffer for one fur coat means that you are achieving a new level of awareness and thus can began your journey as a sensible consumer. Hopefully after reading this entry you will be boycotting the designers I've listed here. The only way we can atleast decrease fur consumption is to stop buying stuff from stores and designers that feature fur items.

Bad Guys Good Guys

Chanel Ann Taylor

Christian Dior Benetton

Christian Lacroix Calvin Klein

Donna Karan Gant

Dolce&Gabbana Guess

Versace Juicy Couture

Armani Lacoste

Givenchy Ralph Lauren

Gucci Robert Rodriguez

Jean Paul Gaultier Stella McCartney

Hermes Tommy Hilfiger

Jill Sander
Karl Largefeld
Luis Vuitton

You can imagine that the bad guys list goes on and on. Designers who don't use fur are
under a rock. Luckily such stores as Forever 21, Topshop, American Apparel and Lindex for example do not sell real fur. It is important that if you have the possibility and chance to look up which stores and designers don't sell real fur, go for it. I'm on the verge of deciding whether I even want to buy cosmetics from designers who feature fur products anymore. It's ironic that designers who don't test their ingredients or products on animals, say 'OK' to fur. I'm going to be talking about animal testing in Part Two.

It can't be more than little over a year when UK banned all fur farming for good. I was so happy to hear this and I wish all fur farming would be wipped out from Finland too. However...this brings up other nasty issues.
As we all know, when someone wants to produce something that is illegal to do in EU or in USA, where do they go? They go to China obviously. It's comes as no surprise that fur is produced in China. Below is our ever so lovely Tim Gunn kiki

giving a message for designers and consumers about the cruelty of fur farming. The video is heart breaking but I encourage you to watch it. http://www.peta.org/tv/celebrities-skins/86967624001.aspx

There is really nothing more I can say what Mr. Gunn didn't already say on the video. But let me begin with rabbits because rabbit is my favourite animal in the whole wide world. After I visited PETA's "Donna Karan: Bunny Butcher" website I went a little bonkers. You can just imagine what my Fbible wall looked like after that. I signed atleast 5 petitions asking DK to stop using bunny fur in her coats and accessories. 'Tim Gunn himself asked DK personally to stop butchering bunnies. And for a little while she did, but last year, suprise, fur in her designs again. PETA has taken Karan under their thumb and are doing their best to make her stop butchering bunnies.
Have you ever heard a bunny scream in agony? I have.
http://dkbunnybutcher.com/

It is common that rabbits are often skinned alive. As seen in the bunny butcher video the chinese butcher just carves the rabbits skin off, totally ignoring the bunny's screams. At some point they take their time to drain the rabbit's blood to keep the fur as clean as possible. The rabbit, if unlucky, is alive even after his or her skin has been carved off. Rabbit can live up to 10min before passing away, after he or she has lost his/her skin.
Another method the butcher uses is electrocution. With female rabbits the wired are squeezed through her vagina with males through his anus. The butcher literally fries the rabbit's entrails from inside.
Much more traditional method I suppose is simply neck snapping. But for some reason the butchers are always eager to use one of the first two methdos to kill the rabbits.
These methods aren't restricted to rabbits only. Other animals like minks are electrocuted by sticking the wires in their mouths. Foxes are just as well skinned alive as rabbits are.

Fox animals and dogs are beaten first before the butcher starts the skinning. They kick the animal in the head and stand on their neck to kill them before skinning. It's no surpirse that many of the animals are still alive and writhing whilst the butcher starts to skin them. Some animals even wake up while they are being skinned.

Other animals are poisoned with strychnine, which suffocates them by paralyzing their muscles with painful cramps.

But before the killing even begins the animals are locked up in small cages, left outside in the boiling sun and freezing nights without food or water in the hope that they'll simply die. Many animals go insane for the lack of space and the constant stress they are under. The frustration the animals go through often results in self-mutilation or cannibalization. With rabbits you can imagine that the mother rabbit's only job is to deliver as much babies as possible. The babies are born to become items. The animals live in filthy wired cages where they have no chance of pursuing their natural instincts. Parasites and disease run rampant on fur farms. The animals' urine and feces burns their eyes and lungs making the animals' already miserable lives even more unbearable. Like I said before, in China animals have no rights. There are no federal humane slaughter laws to protects animals on fur farms

In China dogs and cats are stolen from their beloved owners to be sold to fur farms. Up to 20 cats or dogs are crammed in one cage and transported hundreds of kilometers to farms. The cages are then tossed onto the ground often breaking the legs of the animals inside of them. China is very good at bypassing EU and USA laws. Any fur from China is often mislabeled as fur from other species and is exported to countries and then sold to unsuspecting customers in retail stores. It's bad enough that people are wearing fur, but they will never know which animal's skin they are wearing. Lost your dog in China? You just might be wearing him.


Megan Park for PETA.

In USA and Russia wild animals are caught with traps. This finding totally was the cherry on top of my cake of animal misery research. I had no idea traps are still used to capture animals. I thought that that was a thing in the past. But no, millions of raccoons, coyotes, beavers, otters, and other fur-bearing animals are killed every year for the clothing industry by trappers.

The steel-jaw trap is the most widely used. Luckily this awful device has been banned by the European Union (kudos for EU) and a growing number of U.S. states for example Arizona does not allow the use of steel-jaw traps on public lands. *When an animal steps on the spring of a steel-jaw trap, the trap's jaws slam shut on the animal's limb. The animal frantically struggles in excruciating pain as the trap cuts into his or her flesh, often down to the bone, mutilating the animal's foot or leg. Some animals, especially mothers who are desperate to get back to their young, attempt to chew or twist off their trapped limbs. This struggle may last for hours. Eventually, the animal succumbs to exhaustion and often exposure, frostbite, shock, or death. (*direct quote from PETA)

I feel so awful for those mothers who want to get back to their babies, but instead they won't be seeing them ever again (I'm seriously crying here).

http://www.mediapeta.com/peta/Images/Main/Sections/MediaCenter/PrintAds/AD-babies-miss-their-mother-ad.pdf

Another cruel trap, the Conibear trap, crushes animals' necks, applying pressure. It takes animals three to eight minutes to suffocate in these traps. *Because predators mutilate many trapped animals before the trappers return, pole traps are often used. A pole trap is a form of steel-jaw trap that is set in a tree or on a pole. Animals caught in these traps are hoisted into the air and left to hang by the caught appendage until they die or the trapper arrives to kill them.

(*direct quote from PETA) Like with fur farm animals, the trappers stomp or strangle the animal to death.

Every year, dogs, cats, birds, and other animals, including endangered species, are crippled or killed by traps. In some states there are regulations on how often trappers must check their traps (apparently trapping animals is legal in the USA), but it can vary from 24 hours to one week.

Meaning that the animal will most often suffer in agony (and heartbreak, come on the animal misses his/her family) before he or she dies.

Remember it takes about 10 animals to make a trim and 30 animals to make a coat.

Sophie Ellisbextor for PETA.

It goes without saying that fur farming and any other production that brings harm to animals should be made illegal. I have no idea why fur farms etc haven't been banned already. UK has made a huge step forward and is making the country a little more humane. As I recall, Finland is looking to banish fur farming by 2025. (That's not good enough!). However this brings up other serious issues. In EU fur farming is monitored to some extend. So if all fur farming leaves EU and USA where do you think the producers go? You guessed it, to China. As I said before, China has no animal right laws whatsoever. if we can't ban fur forever, we should ban fur from China. Bring fur back to EU or USA where it could atleast be produced under somewhat-humane surveillance. But EU, USA and designers are too-goodie-two-shoes and let someone else do the dirty job for them. Some furriers even try to convince consumers that pelts are "eco-friendly." (Dear God!) Eighty-five percent of the fur industry's skins come from animals on fur factory farms. It doesn't take a genious to recall China's animal right- and enviromental laws...woops they haven't got any! *Waste from fur farms is poisoning USA waterways. The Environmental Protection Agency has also filed complaints against companies involved in fur production and transportation for illegally generating and disposing of hazardous waste from the processing of pelts. In Denmark, where more than 2 million minks are killed for their fur annually, more than 8,000 pounds of ammonia is released into the atmosphere each year.

Furs are loaded with chemicals to keep them from decomposing in the buyer's closet, and fur production pollutes the environment and gobbles up precious resources. Producing a fur coat from ranch-raised animals takes more than 15 times as much energy as does producing a faux-fur coat. (so this is basically just like what I talked about in my vegetarian entry. When one buys a fur item one is not only endorsing murder, but one is also polluting the enviroment, wasting precious resources and exposes oneself to toxic chemicals)

Fur is only "natural" when it's on the animal who was born with it. Once an animal has been slaughtered and skinned, his or her fur is treated with a soup of toxic chemicals to keep it from rotting. Various salts—along with ammonia, formaldehyde, hydrogen peroxide, and other chromates and bleaching agents—are used to preserve and dye fur. Furriers claim that the carcasses from animals skinned for their pelts are used for animal feed, but often they are simply dumped into landfills. (At any rate, many animals on fur farms are killed with injections of poison, which makes their flesh inedible.). (*Direct quote from PETA).

Like with any other stuff we may posses, it always comes with something else too. Plus can't exists without minus. Personally I have no idea who would want to endorse murder. I'd like to send all the designers who use fur in their designs to fur farms for a week to experience first hand what it's like to work there. Better yet, I'd like to ask all the butchers how they can kill innocent animals day after day and still go home to their families. It's like during the holocaust, how could the nazis kill all those people day after day and go home to their families afterwards?

By now you may have a vivid idea of what I am like as a person. You couldn't be further from the truth my dear reader. Just because I write an entry on fur farming, doesn't mean that I am an anarchist who goes around breaking into fur stores, throwing paint on old hags who wear fur and attact fur farms and release the animals. In Finland we don't have such a big animal rights organization like PETA so we don't have protests against fur farms etc. If there was a march/ public protest I would attend it, as much as I would march for gay rights and attend the slut walk. I believe that everyone, even animals have rights and that they should be made universal. I'm not trying to tick off China by saying that they have no animal rights. I hope to inspire people.

My actions to help animals are small but practical. I sign petitions against fur, animal testing and meat eating. I sign letters that ask designers and consumers to stop buying fur. I don't buy fur products or from retails that sell fur. I don't buy products which ingredients or finished products have been tested on animals. I try to spread awareness of the cruelty of animal testing and fur farming by writing a blog and talking to my friends in person or on Fbible.

It's small things like these that finally make the stand. If we all said no to fur, there would be no need for fur farms or trappers. In the end it's us, consumers, that have the final say.

I hope you found this entry informative and hopefully you'll sign PETA's bunny butcher letter and pledge to be fur-free -> https://secure.peta.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=3191

For more information on fur farming and how to be fur-free go to www.peta.org for more information.