SHOPPERS AT UNION SQUARE CONFRONTED WITH GRIM REALITY OF FUR TRADE
Activists Urge Customers To Be Kind This Season And Go Fur-Free

San Francisco - Mourning the deaths of millions of fur-bearing animals, the victims of vanity and greed, member of IDA hold a candlelight vigil outside of Neiman Marcus to greet shoppers on the busiest shopping day of the year and urge them to shun any fur garment or garment with fur trim. The demonstration is concurrent with demonstrations across the U.S. on the day after Thanksgiving, which has become known as Fur Free Friday:

Date: Friday, November 26
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Place: Union Square, intersection of Stockton St. at Geary St.

Activists will remind shoppers that anyone who buys fur or fur trim supports the suffering of foxes, minks, and chinchillas crammed in filthy wire mesh, feces-ridden cages on fur farms or beavers and seals trapped, beaten, and clubbed in the wild. The message to shoppers is simple: all fur, even the kind inconspicuously used as trim on coats, ear muffs, or gloves, comes from animals cruelly killed by standard fur-farm methods such as neck breaking, poisoning, or anal or vaginal electrocution. The fur may even come from animals in the wild that continue to be caught in steel-jaw traps where they suffer excruciating pain, often for days, before having their chests stomped on or their necks broken by trappers.

Over the past decade, the campaign to stop the bloody fur trade has been enormously successful. Pressure from anti-fur activists was successful in encouraging Macy's West to end its fur sales throughout its West Coast stores. The habit of wearing fur has been exposed and stigmatized as blatant animal cruelty.

"Be it a small bit of fur trim on a cuff or a full-length coat anyone who wears fur is directly responsible for the suffering of animals," says IDA spokesperson Carla Brauer.

Many celebrated designers, such as Stella McCartney, Todd Oldham, and Calvin Klein refuse to design with fur. For more information on IDA's anti-fur campaign, please visit our Web site: www.FurKills.org.