When Fur is Used for Fashion, Animals Pay the Price
by Mat Thomas, In Defense of Animals

Every year, over 40 million mammals are brutally killed and skinned to make 
the fur products sold in stores. While fashion advertisements present fur as stylish and glamorous, the undeniable reality behind their glossy promotional fantasies is one of blood, pain and death for the powerless victims of this brutal trade. 

On fur farms, mink, fox, raccoon and other wild species are bred and raised in crowded, filthy wire cages unprotected from temperature and weather extremes. After a lifetime of being denied all natural instincts and behaviors, animals are killed painfully by poisoning, electrocution or having their necks broken. Some don’t die right away, and are skinned while still alive and conscious.

Animals trapped in the wild suffer other horrors. Caught in steel-jaw traps with pointed teeth or strangled by wire snares, prisoners of these barbaric devices can linger for days or weeks in the frigid winter before a trapper comes to kill them. These animals are so terrified that about one quarter of them chews their own limbs off to escape, only to be killed later by predators.

If you wouldn’t let someone kill and skin your dog or cat to make a coat, then don’t buy fur or fur-trimmed products. Even the slightest bit of fur on a jacket collar or boot caused immeasurable suffering for an intelligent, feeling individual who was much like your own animal friend. 

In addition to being a bold fashion statement, choosing compassionate alternatives is a powerful declaration that fur is only beautiful on those it belongs to—the animals. With the wide availability of warmer, less expensive and more stylish non-animal fashions, everyone can make kinder consumer choices that don’t support cruelty to other species.

How you can help fur-bearing animals:

Every year on the day after Thanksgiving for the last two decades, thousands of people have taken part in Fur Free Friday, the largest national day of action against fur industry cruelty in the U.S. Animal advocates use both tried-and-true tactics and creative new ways to wake people up to the suffering and pain forced on other species by the fashion industry. For example:

- Anti-fur marches bring a compassionate message to the streets where people throng on the busiest shopping day of the year in search of gifts for their loved ones. 

- Fur funerals and vigils honor the lives and mourn the deaths of the tens of millions of animals killed every year to make fur garments, toys and fashion accessories.

- Undercover video footage shown on a battery-powered TV/VCR or TV-equipped vehicle can make a long-lasting impression on people who may never have seen the abuse of animals that is a daily part of the fur industry’s inhumane operations.

Please be a hero to animals on Friday, November 24th by taking part in this important annual day of action aimed at ending the brutal fur trade’s cruelty to other species. To find or organize a Fur Free Friday event in your area, please visit www.furkills.org or contact antifur@idausa.org.