Hello 2016! Here’s our roundup of the fur in the news from the month of December. While many of us were busy shopping… Read More
Hello 2016! Here's our roundup of the fur in the news from the month of December. While many of us were busy shopping and eating turkey, there were still a lot of news stories featuring the subjects that are dear to our hearts: trapping, farming, fur fashion, and cute animals. Let's start with farming!
And speaking of not understanding, it always comes as a surprise to us when farmers have to explain that "smells" are part of life near farms. This Canadian mink farmer is proud of what he is doing, despite the smell (see photo above.)
An important story from the other side of the pond is this one from Denmark, where mink farmers are dealing with a scary outbreak of Aleutian Disease.
Cold weather brings lots of fur-clad celebrities, and we love the way singer Miranda Lambert showed off the fur coat her grandmother gave her (photographed above), despite upset from some of her activist fans.
Hockey player PK Subban looked amazing in the fur coat made for him by the sisters behind Montreal-based brand Eläma.
Huffington Post hired yet another poorly informed "writer" who penned a piece about Canada Goose. He eats meat and claims that it is ok for his friends to hunt, but somehow it is not ok for trappers to live off the land. Hmmm ... Sounds as ridiculous as it is. Although we can never count on activists to be very sane or smart, here's a story about one who is threatening to kill people who consume or use animal products.
Sounds like the Chinese are to thank for boosting the hunting and trapping industry. Here is a very interesting piece about how Chinese are the main buyers of polar bear fur, but the trade is no threat to the animal population.
It’s durable, warm, glamorous and striking. And it comes from an animal that is abundant in the wild, easy to… Read More
"Hot! or Hmm..." asked Fashion Bomb Daily when Kim Kardashian stepped out in a full-length skunk coat from Lanvin.
It’s durable, warm, glamorous and striking. And it comes from an animal that is abundant in the wild, easy to trap, and easy to farm. In short, all the right boxes are checked for a great fur. It was also once the height of fashion. Yet today it's rarely seen in stores, and a pelt sells for the price of a coffee.
This is the conundrum that is skunk fur. Are the fur trade and consumers turning their noses up for no good reason?
Tale of the Tape
Let’s start with the end product.
Skunk fur is durable - less durable than beaver, but ahead of the pack and on a par with mink.
Skunk fur is warm. It's no caribou, but unless you live in the Arctic, it'll work fine.
Skunk fur is glamorous and striking. The guard hairs are long (1-2") with a glossy lustre, and are held erect by thick underfur. And the colouration is unmistakeable: deep brown or black, usually with white striping and cream patterns.
The most prized pelts have solid black backs with a blue sheen, and come from colder regions where pelts are thicker, hairs are finer, and the black is blackest. (No fur is blacker than northern skunk.) If there is one white stripe, and it's long and wide (hooded skunk), this may be retained in a garment, while pelts with two stripes (striped skunk) are normally dyed a uniform black.
So what’s the downside? Not much.
The guard hairs are slightly coarser than fox, the most luxurious long-haired fur.
The black guard hairs, if not dyed, fade to a dull reddish-brown if exposed to sunlight for too long a time. (Just store your fur in a closet.)
Skunk fur is reputed to have an odour, especially when wet, but this should not be a problem today. Using proper trapping techniques, it is rare that an animal sprays. And even if there is a slight vestigial smell, a skilled fur dresser can remove it.
And last, but perhaps not least, it’s called “skunk”.
Skunk Fur Production
So how easy is it to produce skunk pelts? Pretty easy. Let’s start with trapping.
First, skunks are abundant. The striped skunk, the most commonly traded species, has a conservation status of “Least concern” with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. It ranges from southern Canada to northern Mexico, co-exists with humans, and in many parts of its range is growing in numbers.
Second, skunks lack caution and cunning. A box trap works great for nuisance skunks, but is too costly and bulky for fur trapping. Foothold (restraining) traps or bodygrip traps are better.
This unique film footage shows an English skunk farm in 1931. Note how selective breeding has removed all white striping from the animals' backs. For the history of this farm, read here.
Farming skunk is also easy. Indeed, skunk farms were once seen as a stepping stone for beginners looking to graduate to more challenging and valuable furbearers.
Reasons why farming is easy include: Skunk are easily tamed, and at feeding time just come running. They’re poor climbers and have few natural predators, so pens are open-topped. They’ll eat just about anything - table scraps are fine. And selective breeding produces all-black skunk in just three or four generations.
Curious History
So why aren’t we all dressed from head to toe in skunk fur? Its curious history may shed some light.
For the longest time North Americans had no interest in skunk fur, but it wasn't a case of singling it out. They weren't crazy about fox either. And even when skunk was “discovered” in the mid-1800s, demand was not at home but from Europe.
Skunk quickly became America's second most valuable fur harvest after muskrat, with almost all pelts being traded in London and Leipzig. To meet demand, the first farms emerged in the 1880s, but unreliable pelt prices forced most pioneers to close. Then the farms sprung up again at the turn of the century as European demand surged. In 1911, pelt sales in London peaked at just over 2 million.
And that's how things stayed right up to World War I. The domestic market remained tiny, a fact historians attribute to a lack of Europe's deodorising skills. Or perhaps it was that American dressers had to work with pelts so pungent, European brokers wouldn't take them.
Whatever the case, World War I changed everything, not just for skunk but the entire fur trade. With shipments to Europe disrupted, the age of major American auction houses began, first in St. Louis in 1915, then in New York in 1916.
“Skunk fur is intrinsically of high value,” stated the US Department of Agriculture in 1923.
Demand for skunk in North America finally took off, and when the European market came back on stream in 1918, the golden age of skunk had arrived.
Seeing the potential, the US Department of Agriculture published the Economic Value of North American Skunks, in 1914 and again in 1923. “Skunk fur is intrinsically of high value,” it stated unequivocally. “The propagation of skunks for their fur promises to develop into an important industry.”
Skunk trapping also helped countless rural families weather the Great Depression, mailing their pelts to Sears, Roebuck in return for a check or store credit. Through its annual newsletters and radio shows, Sears (aka "Johnny Muskrat") created a whole new generation of trappers, and became one of the largest fur buyers in the US.
Sears, Roebuck grew as a mail order business serving rural communities, and those same communities sent it their furs. During the Depression, skunk figured large in its educational materials.
All in the Name?
And then the age of skunk was over. World War II ended and fur fashion shifted dramatically. Long hair was out and short hair was in. Skunk pelts were almost worthless, red fox pelts were "unsaleable", and even silver fox was scorned. Mink was the new king, a position it has not relinquished to this day.
But a change in fashion was not the whole story. If it had been, skunk would have rebounded along with fox, which still has a loyal following today.
Some observers blame skunk's demise on stricter labelling laws. In the 1930s, the fur trade often took considerable liberties when it came to labelling. Women of all social classes wanted fur, but with the Depression raging, few husbands could afford the premium stuff. What they could afford was humble rabbit, but that didn't sound very glamorous. Enter creative marketing.
“Minkony” was rabbit dyed to look like mink. “Ermiline” was white rabbit, sometimes with black spots for that authentic ermine look. Then there were totally fictitious species like “Baltic black fox”, “Belgian beaver”, “French sable” and “Roman seal” - all rabbit!
Other furs got the creative treatment too. “Hudson seal” was one of the most popular sellers, though it was actually sheared and dyed muskrat. And no fur, of course, needed a new name more than skunk. Why tell Ma’am she was swathed in the skins of foul-smelling critters when you could sell her “American sable”, “Alaskan sable” or “black marten”?
Finally the US Federal Trade Commission cried foul. From 1938 on, the true identity of the furbearer had to be given, though the name of the animal being imitated could stay. Goodbye “American sable", hello "sable-dyed skunk".
Skunk fur stole and muff, circa 1940s. These are natural black with dark brown undertones and cream patterning. The muff is lined with black satin and stuffed with down feathers. From the Lady Violette Vintage Fur Collection.
In 1952 it went further with the Fur Products Labeling Act. Explaining the need for the new law, the Chicago Tribune wrote, “Mrs. Eskimo, who cures the pelt brought to her by husband, has no trouble telling a mink from a muskrat. But Mrs. Housewife, shopping for a fur coat, finds herself in a quandary. There are so many furs and so many names!”
Henceforth, only “the true English names for the animals in question" should appear, "or in the absence of a true English name for an animal, the name by which such animal can be properly identified in the United States.”
The trade resisted, and some unusual new names were approved. "Rock sable", for example, became "bassarisk", even though most people called them ring-tailed cats. But it spelled the end for furs like “China mink” and “Japanese mink” (both weasel).
As for skunk, in a few short years it had gone from being "American sable" to “sable-dyed skunk”, to plain ol' "skunk". Was it too much for consumers? Are we really that shallow? Apparently yes. A rose by any other name does not smell as sweet!
Skunk Fur Today
The last skunk fur farms closed decades ago, and offerings of pelts at auction today are small. Prices, meanwhile, seem frozen in time.
The largest seller today of skunk fur is North American Fur Auctions, in Toronto. At its wild fur sale last June-July, 2,332 pelts were offered (compared with 310,667 muskrat), of which 70% sold. Average price was $5.97.
In February 1920 in St. Louis – that’s almost a century ago - skunk pelts brought an average of $5.14. In today's money that's $61!
From time to time, skunk has made small comebacks. In the early 1970s, in particular, it was considered quirky and cool, but it soon went the same way of Afros and bell bottoms.
Popular designers and fashion houses are still willing to give skunk a try. Just recently, America’s darling of the gossip columns, Kim Kardashian, caused a stir when she stepped out in a fabulous skunk coat from Lanvin.
Can Kim bring skunk in from the fashion cold? Or will it remain forever sealed in a 1930s time capsule?
Could a kick-start campaign bring this remarkable, but under-appreciated, fur back into the limelight? What do you think?
This is the third installment in our Hypocrite series, aimed at exposing the celebrities and professionals whose anti-fur arguments are… Read More
This is the third installment in our Hypocrite series, aimed at exposing the celebrities and professionals whose anti-fur arguments are full of holes. Today we are talking about singer-songwriter and TV presenter Brian McFadden.
Your first thought is probably “Who the heck is that and why do I care?” We realize that someone who rose to fame with an Irish boy band called Westlife isn’t exactly worthy of a column here, but this was one hypocrite we just couldn’t resist, because it was TOO EASY.
Can anyone be a PETA spokesman now? PETA opposes pets and fur, but Brian McFadden loves both.
The Hypocrite: Brian McFadden, ex-boy band singer, now TV presenter and singer-songwriter, who is also the star of PETA’s latest anti-fur campaign (see above).
The Hypocrisy: We’ve gotten into the habit of doing a little bit of research on PETA spokespeople, so after seeing the new campaign, we wandered over to Brian McFadden’s Instagram page, hoping to find a photo of him eating a burger or wearing leather shoes. But what we found was even better. We found a photo of him, less than a year ago, wearing fur!
You are probably thinking, as we did, what if it's fake? Well, PETA condemns wearing fake fur as well as real, so either way he'd be an odd choice for a spokesman. (PETA also believes people shouldn’t have pets, but that’s another story!) But we checked anyway.
Our lead was a tag on Brian's photo to fantastic British accessory designer Charlotte Simone, who works in both real and fake fur. So we emailed the brand and asked if the item was still available. A representative confirmed Brian's scarf is not only still available, but is made of real fox fur. And here it is!
What they say:PETA says, “Brian knows that just like dogs, minks are sensitive animals with emotions and the ability to feel pain – and they deserve better than to be killed for a frivolous fashion accessory.” (Luckily scarves aren’t frivolous fashion accessories, they play the very important role of keeping our necks warm when it's freezing cold!)
Brian's fabulous "Hero" fox fur scarf from Charlotte Simone's Autumn-Winter 2014 collection.
What we say: Charlotte Simone makes some seriously beautiful fur accessories, so we totally understand why Brian wears one. But it is all wrong for him to wear fur and campaign against fur at the same time!
Brian, it's time to decide. Either ditch your beloved fur, or - much better - keep it, be warm, be stylish, and ditch PETA.
While we are on the subject of activism, Greenpeace has backtracked and is now supportive of the seal hunt. Too bad its campaigning in the 1980s has already done so much damage!
Let’s not forget that activists frequently conceal their agenda, which is not about welfare but instead eliminating animal use altogether. This article does a good job reminding us of the distinction.
This memoir of 30 years battling animal rights is a story close to our heart, written as it is by our senior researcher Alan Herscovici.
And our latest blog post is about our Christmas competition giveaway. We are giving away six beautiful fur goodies over the next three weeks, and it is really easy to join.
There were a lot of bizarre fashion laws in history, some involving fur. For example, 14th-century English yeomen and their families could wear no fur other than lamb, rabbit, fox or cat. Even weasel was too good for them!
Violence against women – murdering them even – is acceptable if they are wearing fur. That is the message of… Read More
Violence against women - murdering them even - is acceptable if they are wearing fur. That is the message of the latest shock-and-awe campaign from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Oh my, how silly of me! PETA is really trying to say that we shouldn’t kill animals for fur. Let’s just hope the young muggers out there appreciate the metaphor!
The campaign video shows a man clubbing a woman in a park with a big stick before stripping a fur coat from her lifeless, semi-naked body. (To complete the sex-and-violence theme, we catch a glimpse of breasts as her stripped body hits the ground.)
The video generated angry comments on social media, denouncing its outrageous trivialization of violence against women. Several commenters suggested that “PETA has finally gone too far” and has now “lost all credibility”. If only they were right.
Unfortunately, PETA understands modern media far better than most of its critics do. It knows that the media, and especially social media, cannot resist sensationalism. PETA’s modus operandi takes a page right out of P.T. Barnum's playbook when he said: “We don’t care what you write about us, so long as you spell our name correctly!”
Or as PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk put it: “We are complete media sluts. We didn’t make up the rules, we just learned how to play the game.”
PetaFiles: A Legacy of Crass Exploitation
Here are a few examples of PETA’s adventures into the land beyond good taste and common decency:
THE HOLOCAUST ON YOUR PLATE campaign of 2003 was a travelling display juxtaposing photos of concentration camp prisoners with images of farm animals in abattoirs. Widely criticised wherever it went, this campaign was banned in Germany.
NEITHER OF US IS MEAT was a 2004 billboard campaign exploiting the case of British Columbia pig farmer Robert Pickton, who abducted and savagely murdered dozens of women. Authorities suspect that he may have fed their corpses to his pigs. PETA's billboards showed a young woman on one side and a pig on the other.
GOT PROSTATE CANCER? was the slogan on PETA billboards in 2000 linking milk to prostate cancer. Featured without his consent was cancer sufferer New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani with a milky moustache. "It's tasteless and inappropriate to exploit my illness,” said Giuliani. “The message they're trying to deliver just makes sense in their own zealous, out-of-control thinking."
GOT BEER? was a 2000 campaign aimed at college campuses, encouraging underage students to drink beer instead of milk. "It's official," claimed PETA's posters. "Beer is better for you than milk." Another advocacy group, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), was understandably not amused. For more on this campaign, read "Hey PETA: Got Ethics?"
We could also mention the 2008 Payback Is Hell billboard, which played off the story of spear fisherman C.J. Wickersham, who survived a shark attack with 800 stitches to his leg. Or PETA’s 2011 request to the US Federal Court to rule that five Sea World orcas be considered as “slaves” in violation of the 13th Amendment. Or Ingrid Newkirk’s call, this year, for Minnesota dentist and Cecil-the-lion hunter Walter Palmer to be hanged. The list goes on.
Raking It In
According to its website, PETA’s excuse for such excesses is that, “Unlike our opposition which is mostly wealthy industries and corporations, PETA must rely largely on free ‘advertising’ through media coverage...”
They omit to mention that PETA raked in more than US$50 million in 2014 alone!
In fact, I hesitated to write this piece because I am very conscious that we are doing exactly what PETA wants: we are talking about them.
Nonetheless, I do think we need to denounce this latest PETA campaign, and not only because of the unconscionable trivialization of violence against women. This video also exposes how completely superficial PETA’s understanding really is of the environmental and ethical dimensions of the fur debate.
The fur trade is finally getting its story out, with public information campaigns like Furisgreen.com and TruthAboutFur.com. And the media and public are listening. Some may still choose not to wear fur, leather, wool or silk – or to eat meat – and that’s their right. But people are beginning to understand that, unlike most synthetics, fur is a natural and renewable resource that is being produced responsibly and sustainably. The fur trade is also a heritage industry that supports a wide range of cultures, skills and knowledge.
If this vicious video is the best response that PETA can offer to the serious discussion that the fur trade has initiated, its free ride with the media may soon be coming to an end.
This has been a great year for Truth About Fur – the Blog, with many new members coming on board to help… Read More
This has been a great year for Truth About Fur - the Blog, with many new members coming on board to help share the truth about this amazing resource. Now we'd like to give back with our first Christmas Giveaway that we'll be spreading over the next three weeks. Let us help do your Christmas shopping for you!
WEEK 3: WIN A MUSKRAT HAT OR RABBIT BAG!
For anyone who hates cold ears: Gift them this beautiful unisex muskrat trapper hat (above left) from Kahnert Furs. Did you know that 40% of your body heat escapes through your head? Problem solved!
For the lady with too many leather bags: Give her a natural rabbit fur bag (above right) with leather details from Sunrise. A lady can never have too many bags.
DRAW DATE: The draw for the winners of the above two items will be on Sunday, Dec. 20.
WEEK 1: WIN A TRAPPER HAT OR A FUR COLLAR WITH GLOVES! Update: Winners have been contacted!
For the outdoorsy guy: This classic Canadian trapper hat (above left) from Fur Hat World is lined with beaver. Cold weather doesn't stand a chance!
If she likes to be chic and warm: Check out this beautiful FinnRacoon stole dyed acid green with a pair of purple leather gloves (above right) from Victoria X. Wang. It is possible to be fashionable and warm!
DRAW DATE: The draw for the winners of the above two items was on Monday, Dec. 7. Winners will be announced shortly.
WEEK 2: WIN A KNITTED BEAVER COLLAR OR MINK BASEBALL CAP!
Update: Winners have been contacted!
For the practical lady: What's better than a beaver knit collar (above left) you can pair with any coat or jacket? This one is from Alex Furs. Wear this with a denim vest, a wool jacket, or a fur coat, because you can never have too much fur!
For the guy or girl who has everything: A mink baseball cap from A.J. Ugent Furs (above right). Keeps the snow out of your eyes on your way to work or on the pitch.
DRAW DATE: The draw for the winners of the above two items was on Monday, Dec. 14. Winners will be announced shortly.
The number one threat to all wildlife in North America is loss of habitat. Let me explain why I feel… Read More
Habitat conservation is crucial to preserving wolf population dynamics. Photo: Deborah K.
The number one threat to all wildlife in North America is loss of habitat. Let me explain why I feel it necessary to stand on this statement, in the context of trapping wolves in Canada.
Habitat and carrying capacity - these are unavoidable issues that need to be addressed by all those involved in this controversy, from industry to agriculture to municipalities, conservationists, wildlife protectors, and everyone in between.
Wolves are at the top of the food chain in many of our forested regions in this country. The regions that they are utilizing as habitat are sometimes unable to sustain the population as wolves continue to produce offspring.
My heart lies in addressing what I believe is the real issue. In discussing wolves, I’d like to begin with population dynamics.
Habitat and Population Dynamics
Using the example of a pack of seven wolves, the adult females could birth seven pups in the spring. The mother cares for the pups during their early weeks of life, and the male goes out to hunt and returns with food, so she can concentrate on raising the pups. The entire pack is involved with the raising of the young. The mortality rate is lower than other wildlife because of this.
The habitat they are ranging in could be from 100 to 250 square miles depending on the available food in that habitat.
If all seven pups survive and are healthy, they will reach the size of their mother by the end of the fall season and coming of winter.
That means that the winter that follows the spring birthing, there will now be 14 wolves in that pack. The need for food for this pack will have doubled in less than a year.
So now we have seven pups that will be trained how to kill in order to survive and be an integral part of the pack. This is in one year and the math shows the results after five years is enormous for the same habitat and food source. Some may break away, some will die, but this is the top of the food chain with no predators that are preying on the wolf.
I want to be clear on this point: letting nature take care of itself by allowing it to sort itself out, like nature used to do in generations past, is no longer a viable and responsible option. It is imperative for us to take responsibility to manage the over-population of the wolves.
Nature will cull the numbers through disease, starvation, etc., but as one who has spent the better part of my life involved in wildlife control, it is not a humane thing to witness. If any animal is going to die then it has been my job to see that it is done humanely and as quickly as it can be done.
It then becomes quite obvious that the numbers of wolves in excess of the carrying capacity of the habitat, these animals will need to be removed.
Public Perception
There is a void in the public perception, and an idolizing of wolves that is not helping to protect, but instead is a hindrance!
The simple fact remains contrary to many people’s understanding, we have wiped out so much habitat throughout North America, that this type of population growth will have an astounding effect on the prey species. I’ve seen the results upon horses, lambs, elk calves, moose, deer, caribou, bison and domestic pets.
Where suitable habitat exists, wolves have lived in close proximity to livestock for several years, with little predation issues. But, how long in any area before the growth number of the wolf packs exceeds the available habitat and food source causing livestock and predation problems?
It’s an obvious fact something must be done to control population levels. The most important thing for us to consider is this! There is a need to work together to ensure that if there is a culling process taking place, it should happen in the most humane and effective method available.
When wolf packs exceed the carrying capacity of their habitat, livestock predation begins. Photo: Deborah K.
Trapping – Viable Option?
Trapping is often viewed as a hated solution to population controls, but under the humane trapping standards, utilizing modern equipment, it still remains as one of the best options. Performed in the winter months, when the young are not being nursed, the pack numbers have peaked since the summer and the carrying capacity will now have more pressure on it. The fur will not be wasted and can be a resource to be utilized.
It is an industry that, through provincial wildlife laws, takes the approach of removing the surplus of furbearers, many of which will not find enough suitable habitat in the winter months to survive. This is a simple fact and has enough data and documentation to show a very successful program that continues to be a key element in the health and survival of these animals.
I believe that is something to be proud of as wise use of management!
I can think of no country in the world that does not trap. They may have stopped fur trapping but it still continues and is then called "wildlife control" or "animal damage control" which must be done, to control over-population of species as they continue to produce more offspring than the habitat can sustain. These animals are not used for anything and are treated as vermin and are incinerated or treated as trash. This is not true wildlife management. We are better than this. The carcass of that animal is used by trappers and taken back out to the land to feed other carnivores. The fur is prepared and shipped and sold to be tanned and used.
There is no “nice part” of the dying of any living thing and nothing works perfectly, but we have come a long way and Canada continues to be the world leader on humane trapping standards. There are many pictures circulated throughout public media showing the mistakes made by untrained individuals and just plain carelessness causing suffering and pain, but as a professional I can assure you this is not the norm.
In some countries, furbearers are treated as vermin, trapped and incinerated. This is not true wildlife management. The carcass should be fed to other carnivores, and the fur should be used. Photo: Deborah K.
Carrying Capacity
Human encroachment into wolves' habitat results in conflict that is unavoidable. So, we have created the problem, and we need to take responsibility to manage it. Wolves are predators, and whether we want to view the destruction or turn away from it, will not make it go away.
It is sometimes difficult for some to consider their lifestyle in relation to loss of habitat for wildlife. We are all consumers by the way we live. We may not eat meat but if we use toilet paper, magazines, books or newspapers, or if we buy lumber to build a bird house or picnic table, we are supporting a lumber industry, which is taking out habitat.
If we use oil, gasoline, plastic etc., we are supporting an oil industry that is wiping out habitat. The point being here that we are all in this together. Nature is not something separate from us and it never will be. We can’t survive without it.
There is a direct link between our choices to buy more and more stuff, traveling less distances to get it, and habitat that is being lost at an alarming rate. Less destruction of habitat is an absolute if you are going to preserve the current wolf population dynamics.
As always, knowledge and understanding are powerful tools. In such an emotionally charged time in human history and love of wildlife, those that hate the wolves and those that love the wolves will need to find a balance of true and clear knowledge of what is really taking place.
This includes a full understanding of loss of habitat. Instead of wasting so much time and money arguing about who is responsible, we would better serve the preservation of the species by collaborating together to find viable solutions that work long term. The money in this effort would then be well spent.
We have taken the habitat and continue to do so, therefore we are responsible to manage the population in the most humane and ethical manner available to us.
This is the sensible approach to a very heated conflict and one that is going to continue to make headlines.
My life as a professional trapper has proven to me what an important resource Canadian trappers are, both to the academic and scientific community, along with both provincial and federal government departments and conservationists at all levels.
Ethical trappers are the front line of conservation and will continue to be a valuable tool and play a key role in the welfare of our furbearing wildlife.
FOLLOW ROSS HINTER'S "BUSHCRAFT - LEARNING HOW" ON:
This is the second installment in our Hypocrite series, aimed at exposing influential figures whose anti-fur arguments are full of holes. Today… Read More
This is the second installment in our Hypocrite series, aimed at exposing influential figures whose anti-fur arguments are full of holes. Today we're talking about pop singer Pink, a PETA spokesperson and meat-eating "vegan" who loves wearing leather shoes.
The Hypocrite: Pink, pop singer, "vegan", and current model in PETA’s “Rather Go Naked” anti-fur campaign.
The Hypocrisy: Pink helps the animal rights organisation PETA to campaign against fur. PETA, not coincidentally, also promotes veganism. So, depending on the day of the week, Pink describes her diet as "mostly vegan".
On the subject of fur, Pink entreats us in her PETA poster to "Be comfortable in your own skin, and let animals keep theirs." But she has no problem with a cow losing its skin so she can wear suede boots.
"Be comfortable in your own skin, and let animals keep theirs," says PETA spokesperson Pink, seen here resplendent in her suede boots. Photo: GC Images
What they say:PETA says, “P!nk has become known for being super-comfortable in her own skin—so comfortable that she teamed up with PETA and photographer Ruven Afanador to make her point perfectly clear: She wants animals to keep their own skin.”
What we say: Pink, your suede boots are lovely, but they're made from animal skin. So stop asking the rest of us to let animals "keep their own skin" while wearing it yourself.
Also, your diet of mostly veggies, but with chicken, fish and cheesecake thrown in, sounds great, but don't call yourself "mainly vegan", or even a vegetarian, just because you think it sounds cool (or because PETA told you to). You're an omnivore.
You and PETA are clearly a mismatch, so please stop endorsing them immediately.
We’ll eat our steaks, and you can wash down your chicken with a wheatgrass smoothie.
We’ll wear our fur, and you can wear your suede boots.
And we'll all refrain from telling each other what to do and how to live our lives. Fair enough?
Thirty years! The other day I suddenly realised that this is the 30th anniversary of the publication my book Second… Read More
The author (standing right) with leaders of the Aboriginal Trappers Federation at their founding meeting, not long after Second Nature was published, in 1985.
Thirty years! The other day I suddenly realised that this is the 30th anniversary of the publication my book Second Nature: The Animal-Rights Controversy. First published by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in 1985, this was the first serious critique – and is still one of the very few – of the animal-rights movement from an environmental and human-rights perspective.
The publication of Second Nature changed my life. Until then, my interests as a freelance writer had ranged widely, although curiosity about different people and cultures was often a unifying theme: from promoting the cause of Tibetan refugees to exploring the mystical world of Hassidic Jews. While I was brought up in a Canadian fur manufacturing family, the emerging “animal rights” debate was only one story among many.
Now, suddenly, I was thrust into a quickly escalating battle. I was invited to speak with cattle, chicken and hog producers, medical researchers, science teachers, and many others. My message was that people working with animals should speak out about what they do, so the media and public can hear both (or, rather, the many) sides of these complex issues.
I had the opportunity to put theory into practice when I was asked to serve as executive vice-president of the Fur Council of Canada. In that capacity I directed the industry’s “Fur Is Green” campaign and, more recently, the first full-fledged North American information program under the “Truth About Fur” banner.
So what have I learned in more than 30 years of studying and sparring with the animal-rights movement? Here are 10 important lessons, most of which have implications far beyond the debate about fur.
1. The medium is the message. The frenetic pace of modern news cycles clearly favours sensationalism and emotions, the stuff of animal-activist campaigning. In a world of information overload and attention spans measured in sound bites, it is increasingly difficult to discuss complex (aka “real”) issues in any serious way.
Animal activists want to "discuss" complex issues via Internet memes. The attention span required is measured in seconds. Just click "share"!
2. A picture is worth a thousand words. So good luck explaining to the television audience why well-regulated trapping helps to maintain stable and healthy wildlife populations while the activists' photo of an animal in a trap is projected onto the screen behind you. What the audience is not seeing is the animal suffering (starvation, disease) that results if we “let nature take care of itself”, as activists propose.
Thanks to decades of scientific research, modern trapping methods are much more humane than nature’s way of regulating wildlife populations. But most of us will never see the fox scratching itself raw for weeks before dying of sarcoptic mange, or the bite scars on beaver that fought each other for survival in an overpopulated pond.
Animal rightists don't want us to see this side of nature. When coyotes over-populate an area, they are more susceptible to disease and parasites, including sarcoptic mange. Photo: Ken Gartner.
3. “Animal rights” is NOT animal welfare. The animal-welfare movement developed to ensure that animals we use – for food, clothing or other purposes – are treated “humanely”, i.e., with respect and as little suffering as possible. Animal rights, by contrast, is a philosophy that claims we have no right to use animals at all. “Not better cages, no cages!” says the Animal Liberation Front slogan.
I traced the origins of this radical new philosophy in Second Nature, and yet, 30 years later, the profound difference between “animal rights” and “animal welfare” is still not understood by most journalists or politicians, let alone the general public. This allows groups like PETA to masquerade as welfare advocates – attracting media attention and credibility with shocking exposés of animal abuse – although PETA really opposes any use of animals, no matter how humanely it is done.
4. Urban trumps rural. It is striking how often rural people play the bad guys in activist campaigns: loggers, miners, ranchers, hunters. This reflects a widening split between rural and urban cultures; for the first time in human history, most of us live in cities. It wasn’t so long ago that most North Americans still had family on the land – you visited grandparents on the farm at Christmas and learned to respect rural skills and knowledge – but not anymore.
Most journalists also live in cities, and with reduced budgets they rarely have time to seek out the rural side of the story. Not surprisingly, media usually reflect an urban bias with little interest in, or understanding of, rural realities.
5. We have lost contact with the real sources of our survival. We all use paper and wood, but it’s “eco-cide” to cut trees. We need metal and glass, but miners are evil. It’s hard to imagine life without gas for cars and oil for heating, without plastics or synthetic textiles – but no oil wells or pipelines here please! Plentiful meat and milk has allowed even poor children to develop healthy minds and bodies, but activists now want us to believe that animal agriculture is a continuation of the Holocaust.
The remarkable productivity of primary producers has given the rest of us the freedom to do many other wonderful things that make a thriving and cultured modern society. And yet, perversely, we use that freedom to attack the people who feed and clothe us!
Animal activists often miss the big picture. Los Angeles has the worst traffic in the US but these Angelinos want to shut down the offshore oil industry because occasional spills endanger wildlife. Imported oil only please! Photo: Reuters.
6. Animal activism is big business. We have come a long way from “the little old ladies in tennis shoes” whose volunteer efforts supported the SPCA and other traditional animal-welfare groups. Groups like PETA rake in some $30 million annually; the so-called Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) collects more than $100 million. And there are dozens of other such groups.
They attract attention with naked “celebrities" or sensationalist “exposés”; they translate their “brand recognition” into income with sophisticated computer-assisted fund-raising techniques. As one leading activist told me: “You can’t win because it costs your industry money to fight us, but we make our money campaigning. The longer the battle, the more we make!”
7. Animal rights reflects a culture in transition. It was Michael Pollan’s 2006 book The Omnivore’s Dilemma that first drew my attention to this aspect of the animal-rights phenomenon. Not long ago our ancestors lived in societies with clear ideas about how one should live, what we should eat, who we should marry, and so on. With the erosion of "traditional values" by globalisation, multiculturalism and secularism, everything is up for grabs.
A trip to the grocery store triggers a complex ethical calculus: should we buy organic or conventional, local or imports, GMOs, trans fats, low cholesterol, gluten free, and on it goes! In this confusion, philosophies that propose a new moral certitude can be very attractive, especially to younger people.
8. Animal activists show more aggression than compassion! Over the past 30 years, the tone and tactics of animal activist campaigning have become much more confrontational. Check out the comments posted on animal-related articles, the Facebook pages of activist groups, videos of “direct action” demonstrations, not to mention the criminal attacks by the Animal Liberation Front.
Compassion for animals has become a pretext for hatred of farmers, furriers, medical researchers and other people. In part, this parallels the hyper-testosteronization of society in general, from the sex and violence of video games and music videos to road rage. But the fundamentalist core of the animal-rights philosophy should not be ignored: i.e., when idealistic young people are told that raising and eating farm animals is the moral equivalent of the Holocaust, don’t be surprised that butcher stores are vandalized.
PETA's 2003 campaign "Holocaust on Your Plate" shocked the world. This was perhaps the least disturbing image used. For more, see here.
It seems ironic, nonetheless, that activists who claim to speak for compassion are so keen to attack the livelihoods and cultures of others. Unfortunately, many animal activist organisations have become politically-correct hate groups.
9. Freedom to protest vs. freedom of choice. Freedom of expression is essential in a free society. For that reason, police in western democracies are generally very tolerant of protesters. Where, however, is the balance between the right to protest the sale of fur-trimmed, down-filled parkas, for example, and the right of consumers and retailers to buy and sell such products?
One store in Vancouver has been subjected to rowdy protests several times a week for more than a year! The activists have vowed to put this retailer out of business unless he stops selling Canada Goose coats. Customers are harassed, neighbours are disturbed, the survival of a legal business that pays taxes and employs many young people is threatened – but the rights of a few dozen activists apparently trump everyone else’s interests. Another store selling fur in Hotel Vancouver was subjected to such frequent and aggressive protests that its lease was not renewed, not because the management disliked fur but because their guests felt intimidated. Can you spell “protection racket”?
Animal rights protesters believe freedom of expression gives them the right to limit everyone else's freedom of choice and shut down legal businesses. Sustained harassment forced a fur store to move when a Vancouver hotel opted not to renew its lease.
It is time to ask whether “freedom of expression” includes the right to protest wherever one chooses. If we think it’s wrong to sell fur, this could be expressed in a public park or square as easily as in front of small, family-owned businesses. Or at the seat of government, since it is government that is empowered to decide whether a product should be banned.
After all: if consumers didn't want to buy fur or fur-trimmed coats, retailers would not be stocking them. Protesters are using the freedom that democracy provides as a weapon to short-circuit it.
10. Time to speak out! There are many reasons why activist voices have dominated this debate until now. Farmers, ranchers and medical researchers are busy farming, ranching, and researching. As my activist friend so astutely observed: “It costs you to fight us; we make our money fighting you!”
The natural bias of the media is also a factor: thousands of farmers doing a good job caring for their animals, day in and day out, is not “news”.
Often, too, activist claims seemed so absurd that the people involved felt no need to respond; they didn’t understand that the public can’t know which claims are absurd if the experts remain silent.
Happily, the people who work with animals are beginning to understand the importance of speaking out. In our case, producer and trade associations across North America have joined to produce TruthAboutFur.com. While still a work in progress, we are already seeing impressive results: e.g., our Facebook page now has more than 23,000 “followers”!
People who work with animals are finally speaking out more effectively: info materials have been produced for schools, while information for media, consumers and political leaders is available on exciting new websites like FurIsGreen.com and TruthAboutFur.com.
Now it is up to everyone to use these tools to make our voices heard. If you see an anti-fur comment in the paper, write a letter or call the journalist to suggest they check out our website. Retailers can provide the URL to consumers who wonder whether it’s “OK” to wear fur. There are great resources for schools. And the website also provides credible information that politicians need to make responsible decisions affecting our industry.
And, finally, perhaps that’s the most important lesson of all from my 30 years of battling “animal rights”: it’s up to each of us to speak out for our industry. Because, as Irish political philosopher Edmund Burke reputedly said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
October 2015 has come and gone, it’s time for our monthly Fur In The News roundup. Let’s start with trapping since… Read More
One of our favourite novelty fur trends this season: Fendi's fur eye sweaters (centre).
October 2015 has come and gone, it's time for our monthly Fur In The News roundup. Let's start with trapping since the season is now well under way.
We loved this piece, "Getting permission should be your mission," for its very useful tips on maintaining a good relationship with the owners of the land on which you trap. It may not be at the forefront of trappers' minds, but it certainly is important!
"Trapping is serious business" also features some great tips and reminds us all that the reputation of the trapping industry relies a great deal on how trappers work.
We were thrilled to hear about this trapping education program in Ontario for primary and secondary students, which teaches them valuable skills and gets them out into nature. And if you aren't a trapper and run into a coyote by surprise, this article tells you what to do. Best to read it now, since it might not be convenient when you actually need the information!
Not only are we in trapping season, but we are also in fur fashion season. When the weather gets cold, what else could you possibly want to wear?
For inspiration for your fur wardrobe, check out the amazing Fur Now campaign (pictured above.) If you are thinking of reviving an old fur coat to wear this season, then read these fur restoration and care tips. Toronto Life did a great piece on how a Canada Goose coat is made (proudly in Canada!), but if you are just looking for some fur fashion inspiration, then we suggest these Stoffa fur hats, or the Fendi fur sweaters pictured at the top of this page.
Speaking about shopping, when you are making your holiday gift list, be sure to consider some seal skin. We love this seal skin fine art, and here's a great boutique to stock up on shoes, gloves, hats and other items made from our furry sea friends.
No monthly round up would be complete without reviewing what our activist "friends" (enemies) have been doing.
PETA is currently discriminating against pit bulls (apparently some pets are worse than others) and we'd like to remind them that there are no bad dog breeds, only bad dog owners. In other doggie news, a group in France decided to steal a homeless man's dog, claiming he wasn't taking care of it. The video, including the dog owner crying, is here.
Nobel prize winners were announced in October and we loved the graphic above from Understanding Animal Research. Thanks to animal research, we have made great strides in science and this should never be forgotten, or prevented in the future. Speaking of animals in labs, this article about an activist taking a tour of an animal testing lab resulted in something unexpected – for them! It turned out that they were very impressed about how the animals were being cared for!
The Animal Ag Alliance has some great suggestions on how to deal with farm security threats, and if you are only fighting them on Facebook, you may want to repost the graphic above, reminding self-righteous vegans that they probably consume a lot of animal parts, one way or another.
Or you could remind your anti-fur, silk-wearing friends that silk is made by boiling worms alive. That was the topic of our first in a new blog series featuring animal hypocrites, starting with Stella McCartney who claims that killing animals for fashion is wrong, but sells shirts and dresses made from silk.
Now for a few bits and bobs:
• This library in Alaska lends out stuffed puffins, wolf furs, and walrus skulls complete with tusks.
Hair density has always fascinated the fur trade because the densest furs are also the softest and most luxurious. Before the advent… Read More
Hair density has always fascinated the fur trade because the densest furs are also the softest and most luxurious. Before the advent of modern conservationism, this meant that the densest furs were prone to over-harvesting. Today, we have learned from past mistakes. Trade in the densest fur of all is still restricted, but the animal's recovery is considered a great conservation success. And due to a remarkable story in the history of farming, the second-densest is abundant and readily available.
To appreciate what makes fur dense, let’s set a baseline: human hair. And because human hair varies depending on ethnicity and hair colour, we’ll choose the densest of all, a pale blond(e).
A blonde’s fine hairs average about 190 per cm2, varying depending on the part of the scalp. That's almost double Afro-textured hair, the least dense.
Now step aside blondie, and make way for that benchmark of luxury, mink.
A mink’s hair density varies by season and body part. Also, farmed mink is denser than wild, and a dressed pelt is denser than a live animal. But as a guide, a dressed, farmed pelt has about 24,000 hairs per cm2. That’s 126 times denser than the thickest human pelage!
Blondes have the densest head hair of all humans, but pale in comparison to the hirsute mink. Photos: Themes.com; Truth About Fur.
Impressed? Well hold on. Prepare for furs so dense and soft that words to describe them are hard to find. Like talcum powder, perhaps?
Animals with the densest furs live where climates are cold, humid and windy. Size also matters; because small mammals are more vulnerable to heat loss, they generally have denser fur.
And so we find ourselves in the high Andes, home of the long-tailed Chinchilla lanigera and short-tailed Chinchilla chinchilla. Being small and nocturnal makes them elusive. They're also very rare. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies both as "critically endangered".
We can blame the “tragedy of the commons” for that. Though the term was coined for what happens when no one owns common grazing land, it also played a role in the historic fur trade.
Spanish explorers first sent chinchilla pelts home in the 16th century, but it wasn’t until the late 19th century that Europeans developed an insatiable appetite for them. Populations collapsed, prices soared, and by the early 20th century a peasant trapper could feed his family for a month with just one pelt - if he could find one!
Only late in the day, in 1910, did the range states of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru unite to ban the trade, but effective enforcement was still decades away. Extinction seemed inevitable.
Farmers to the Rescue!
And then the cavalry arrived, in the unlikely form of fur farmers.
Blowing on chinchilla fur reveals hairs so dense, a flea cannot survive. Photo: Salix. Top: A tuft of hairs from a single follicle. Photo: FBI. Bottom: Mathias Chapman, father of chinchilla farming, with his pet, Pete.
It all began with Californian miner Mathias Chapman who, in 1923, was allowed by Chile to take 11 live chinchilla home for breeding. (It took him three years to trap them!) Ten survived the trip and one gave birth en route.
Chapman originally planned to breed pets, but he switched to fur farming. Today, chinchilla farms are found from Canada to Argentina, and in many European countries, and almost all their stock are believed to descend from Chapman's original 10.
Farming of animals can help conserve their wild cousins. By meeting demand, it reduces pressure on wild populations, as in the case of mink and fox. But it can also encourage illegal hunting and provide a cover for smuggling - the fear with tiger farming.
In the case of chinchilla, farming didn't just help protect wild populations, it probably saved them. And even if most chinchilla now live in pens and eat hay and pellets, there is absolutely no chance of them going extinct!
Dense Is Desirable
So what is all the fuss about with chinchilla fur? Hair density. No other terrestrial mammal comes close.
A full-length chinchilla coat (left) may use 150 pelts, so get ready for sticker shock: $25,000. Photos: Kaufman Furs.
Hairs grow from organs called follicles which, in humans, are densest on the forehead – about 290 per cm2. Chinchilla have as many as 1,000.
Then there's the number of hairs per follicle. Hairs grow in tufts, with 1-3 (rarely 4) sprouting from each human head follicle. But a regular chinchilla has about 50 hairs per follicle, while a show “chin” (as pet owners call them) may have 100.
That means a regular chin has 50,000 per cm2 - double a farmed, dressed mink pelt, and 263 times more than our human blonde. So dense is a chin's fur that it's said fleas and ticks can’t penetrate it, and if they could, they'd suffocate!
"Soft Gold"
Amazingly, there is fur even denser than chinchilla - so dense it drove men to endure the harshest conditions nature could throw at them, far from home, for more than 100 years. This was the Great Hunt!
In the early 18th century, Russian fur traders found themselves on the Pacific shores of Siberia. Drawn by a cornucopia of desirable furs, notably sable, they had spent 150 years opening up Russia's vast eastern territory.
Now they took to their boats in pursuit of fur so dense, and so valuable, it was known as "soft gold": sea otter.
Starting from the Kuril Islands, the traders island-hopped across the North Pacific, harvesting one otter population after another, plus highly profitable hair seals they found along the way. The otter trade in Alaska boomed, and then the traders headed south. There they were joined by adventurers from all over North America and Europe in the great California Fur Rush.
The moniker "soft gold" was deserved. In 1775 otter pelts sold in the Russian port of Okhotsk at up to 30 times the price of sable. In the 1880s, a pelt brought $165 in London, but by 1903, as supplies dried up, made a staggering $1,125.
Thankfully the ground-breaking North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911 put an end to seal otter fever by imposing a moratorium on the hunt. But was it too late? Perhaps fewer than 2,000 otters remained. Could they ever recover?
Yes they could! Sea otters have rebounded in two-thirds of their historic range, and are today cited as a great success story in the annals of marine conservation. As a precaution given the lesson of history, IUCN still classifies them as endangered, but Alaskan fishermen are now complaining the population is growing so fast, they've become a pest!
Natives of Alaska's coastal villages are exempt from the ban on sea otter hunting, and can sell "significantly altered" products to non-natives. Here women take a class in working with otter fur, hoping to create a cottage industry. Photos: Ruth Eddy/KRBD.
So what is it about sea otter fur that's so alluring? You know the answer already: density. Not even chinchilla compares.
Sea otters need superb insulation because, unlike other marine mammals, they have no blubber. And unlike that other four-legged marine mammal, the polar bear, they don't leave the water unless they absolutely have to. Imagine, swimming in the North Pacific, 24/7, in winter. Unless you have inches of blubber, or are a halibut, it's almost inconceivable.
At its upper range, that’s four times denser than the finest show chin, 16 times denser than a farmed mink, and 2,105 times denser than our human blonde. That is dense fur!
We encounter a lot of hypocrisy here at Truth About Fur, as it seems most anti-fur folk like bacon, wear… Read More
We encounter a lot of hypocrisy here at Truth About Fur, as it seems most anti-fur folk like bacon, wear leather, or think that synthetics don’t kill animals. (Tell that to the families of the birds that died in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill!) Today’s feature, the first in our Hypocrite series, is about one of the most hypocritical fashion designers we know: Stella McCartney.
The list of Stella McCartney’s hypocritical actions is long. Let’s not start on the fact that her company is owned by the same company that owns Gucci, best known for its leather goods. Or that she has several homes and frequently flies around the world for work. That’s not good for the environment, is it?
We also aren’t going to talk about the fact that Stella McCartney has acknowledged the popularity and beauty of fur by launching her own collection of (synthetic, tacky) fake fur pieces. She routinely uses synthetic materials that are not sustainable and are derived from petroleum by-products, whilst preaching about taking care of the environment. But that’s also not what we are talking about today.
Today we are going to focus on silk.
Stella McCartney's silk blouses, made by boiling silk worms alive. Photos: Stella McCartney.
The hypocrite: Stella McCartney, British fashion designer, lifelong vegetarian, and occasional spokesperson for PETA.
The hypocrisy: Stella McCartney refuses to use leather or fur in her collections, and claims “the decision not to use leather or fur is not just because I don’t eat animals or that I think that millions of animals each year shouldn’t be killed for the sake of fashion. It’s because I also believe in the connection between fur and leather and the environment.”
However, Stella McCartney uses a lot of silk in her collections.
Do you know how silk is harvested? Silk worms are boiled alive in their cocoons, allowing the long fibres to be extracted. This gets less media attention than fur because larvae aren’t as cute as mink and fox.
Stella McCartney's "fur free fur." Why not just call it "ugly petrochemical coats" instead? Photos: Stella McCartney.
What they say: PETA describes Stella McCartney as an “inspired and compassionate trendsetter” whose “award-winning collections are proudly free of leather, fur, and other skins.” Funny they didn’t mention that her collections include many garments made from animals that have been boiled alive.
What we say: If Stella McCartney wants to make fashion collections without leather or fur, then that is fine. But can she please spare us the preaching about how the leather and fur industries are cruel to animals and the environment, when her own web store is stocked with garments made from non-biodegradable accessories and dresses whose fabric’s production process involves boiling animals alive?
And if she doesn’t think that millions of animals should be killed “for the sake of fashion,” how does she explain all of the silk on her website? Is it because worms’ lives aren’t as valuable as minks’ or foxes’, or is it because Stella McCartney is a hypocrite? I think we all know the answer to that.
