Mickey Z

Cool Observer

Warning: This blog has not been approved by
the Department of Homeland Security.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Below the pelt

(In honor of all the animals killed to make fur coats for Valentine’s Day)

With all the negative publicity the fur industry has attracted over the years, it never fails to astonish me how many people can still unselfconsciously wear animal fur. More than 6 million creatures per year are murdered so these individuals can pay outlandish prices to parade around in their pelts.

There are two methods of slaughtering fur-bearing creatures. Almost three million of them (usually minks, foxes, chinchillas, and raccoons) are raised on so-called fur farms where they are imprisoned in cages often as small as 2.5 square feet for four animals. Since no federal law protects the animals on these farms, the conditions are predictably horrifying. The animals display the behavior of any creature under incredible duress: pacing, climbing, self-mutilating, cannibalism. After a life of misery, death does not come swiftly. The preferred method of execution is anal or genital electrocution. Described as experiencing “the intense pain of a heart attack while fully conscious,” the animals literally are burned from the inside out…to prevent damage to the coat, of course. Alternate fur farm approaches include suffocation or neck-breaking however, this often results in the animals only being stunned and therefore skinned alive.

Not all animals can be raised and confined in cages. Raccoons and foxes, for example, are trapped in the wild. PETA describes the practice of trapping: “Animals…caught in steel-jaw leghold trap—the most widely used trap—endure excruciating pain from the steel bars clamped onto their legs, paws, and bodies. Some animals, especially mothers desperate to return to their young, will struggle to get loose, even chewing or twisting off their own legs to escape. Animals suffer for hours or even days in traps before trappers arrive to stomp on their chests or break their necks. The trapped animal is left to suffer blood loss, infection, gangrene, exhaustion, exposure, frostbite, shock, or attack by nonhuman predators. Other animals, such as beavers and muskrats, caught in underwater traps can struggle for up to 20 minutes before drowning.”Not surprisingly, these traps snare many unintentional victims like dogs, cats, and birds. These creatures are designated as “trash kills” because they lack the one characteristic that keeps the entire system alive: economic value.

Have a nice day, humans...