It’s hard to believe, but millions of foxes, rabbits, mink, raccoons, and other furry animals are still killed every year for their fur. Eighty-five percent of these animals live (if you want to call it “living”) on fur farms—where they’re crammed into cages with other animals—some sick, some dying, and all terrified.
There are no federal laws to protect animals on fur factory farms, and killing methods are gruesome. Because fur farmers only care about preserving the quality of the fur, they use slaughter methods, such as the ones below, that keep the pelts intact but that can result in extreme suffering for the animals:
- Small animals may be crammed into boxes and poisoned with hot, unfiltered engine exhaust from a truck. Engine exhaust is not always lethal, and some animals wake up while they are being skinned.
- Larger animals have clamps attached to or rods forced into their mouths and anuses or vaginas, and they are electrocuted.
- Other animals are poisoned with strychnine, which suffocates them by paralyzing their muscles with painful, rigid cramps. Gassing, decompression chambers, and neck-breaking are other common slaughter methods on fur factory farms.
You Can Stop the Fur Trade!
NEVER buy fur, and share this information with everyone you know.
5 Things You Didn’t Know About Fur Farms
- Animals killed for fur are sometimes skinned while still alive. An undercover investigation found that animals were skinned while their hearts were still beating.1
- The fur industry refuses to stop using obviously cruel killing methods. Genital electrocution—deemed “unacceptable” by the American Veterinary Medical Association in its “2000 Report of the AVMA Panel on Euthanasia”—causes animals to suffer from cardiac arrest while they are still conscious.2
- Animals trapped in the wild may suffer for days in steel-jaw traps. Mothers desperate to return to their young will often chew or twist off their own legs in order to free themselves. Those who can’t get free suffer for days without any food or water before trappers return and strangle, stomp, or bludgeon them to death.3
- Contrary to fur-industry propaganda, fur production destroys the environment. The amount of energy needed to produce a real fur coat from ranch-raised animal skins is approximately 20 times that needed to produce a fake fur garment.4
- Wearing cat and dog fur is legal in Canada, and fur taken from those animals in China is often mislabeled as fur from another species, so you can’t be sure who you’re wearing.5
What You Can Do to Help
- Use our “sale” sign hangers to speak out against fur!
1Swiss Animal Protection/Easter International.
2American Veterinary Medical Association, “2000 Report of the AVMA Panel on Euthanasia,” Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 218 (2001): 669-96.
3Nick Foulkes, “To Make 1 of These … You Need 183 of These,” ES Magazine 27 Oct. 2000.
4Gregory H. Smith, “Energy Study of Real vs. Synthetic Furs,” University of Michigan, Sep. 1979.
5David Graham, “How Canada Gets Dog and Cat Fur From China,” TheStar.com, 30 Jun. 2012