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California Residents: Act Now to Ban ALL Fur Trapping in California!

California Residents: Act Now to Ban ALL Fur Trapping in California!

This bill has passed the Assembly and will be heard by the Senate. Stay tuned for updates!

This alert is no longer active, but here for reference. Animals still need your help.

Despite a leghold and body-gripping trap ban enacted in 1998, wild animals throughout California continue to be killed by unimaginably cruel trap-and-kill methods in the name of vanity. Now, we finally have a chance to prohibit all fur trapping in California!

On Jan 24, California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez introduced Assembly Bill 273 to prohibit the issuance of fur trapping licenses in the state. Please urge the California State Assembly to support a statewide fur trapping ban!

Every year, hundreds of fur-bearing animals including coyotes, mink, foxes, beavers, raccoons, badgers, and various other species are trapped in California so that their skins can be sold to countries around the world including Russia and China. Trappers viciously kill animals and strip them of their pelts in large quantities within small areas, threatening the survival of the populations and negatively interfering with their habitats.  

In 1998, body-gripping traps, including the exceptionally cruel steel-jawed leghold traps were banned in California. Leghold and body-gripping traps clamp down on an animal’s leg or other body part, leaving them to struggle in agony until they are killed by a trapper, eaten by a predator, die of dehydration or starvation, or chew off their own limbs to escape. Sadly, despite over 100 countries worldwide having banned these traps, California is one of the only US states to have done so, but it isn’t nearly enough. 

Although these trapping methods have been banned, fur trappers still use box traps, cages, and nets to capture unsuspecting animals who endure the trauma of being caged and unable to return to their shelters and families. To avoid damaging pelts, trappers often use gas chambers, manual strangulation, and anal electrocution to kill the animals they have trapped, and all for the sake of a trivial “fashion statement.” 

The ban on fur trapping will spare animals gruesome deaths and will also benefit California’s economy. According to state law, “The state’s costs of managing a commercial trapping program must be fully recovered through trapping license fees.” In 2017, 133 trapping licenses were sold in the state, contributing an estimated $15,000 to the Department of Fish and Wildlife. The cost of managing and enforcing the program’s trapping regulations far exceeds what was collected through issuing licenses, indicating a blatant violation of the law.

The Center for Biological Diversity has sued the California Fish and Game Commission for “improperly managing and illegally subsidizing the state’s commercial trapping program” indicating that two state agencies have “diverted as much as half a million dollars since 2013 to subsidize commercial fur trapping in California,” therefore leaving residents to pay for the failed program.

Millions of dollars are generated every year from watching wild animals in California’s diverse landscapes, which is yet another economic downfall of killing the state’s wild animals for fur.

As more top fashion designers are adopting fur-free designs including Burberry, Versace, Gucci, Michael Kors, Armani, and many more, it is evident that the majority of the public no longer wants inhumanely produced clothing. Cities around the world, including the California cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles, have implemented fur bans, signaling a shift to phase out fur trapping for good.

What YOU Can Do:

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