Compassion is fashion. Being human will always look stylish! Unfortunately, some people have misunderstood the meaning of fashion. Looking at history, we are aware that animals are hunted for their fur and skin. Surprisingly, even educated people are not aware of the horrors animals go through for their skin on this planet.
More than 40 million animals are killed every year for fur and skin. This is because there are viable customers wanting to buy animal skin. It doesn't matter how an animal is hunted for its skin, whether in fur farm or in the wild. In any case, it causes acute suffering and pain to the animals while trimming their fur or taking their skin which leads to their death.
The atrocities done to the animals are innumerable and difficult to digest for a sensitive human. Animals raised on fur farms spend their whole life imprisoned in dirty and painful cages. Minks, foxes, raccoons, coyotes, bobcats, lynxes, opossums, nutria, beavers, muskrats, and otters are the commonly raised animals for fur. The animals here are killed in the most gruesome ways like poisoning, gas, suffocating, or giving electric shock.
The animal skin traders get the majority of the fur from the fur farms. These farmers make sure to yield the best quality fur by proper diet and breeding. China takes care of more than half of the fur used in America. For this, millions of dogs and cats are beaten to death, hanged, or even skinned alive in greed for their fur. The poor animals trapped often suffer painfully for long hours due to blood loss, fright, thirst, cold, and attacks from other animals.
Many times, the leg bone of the animal is cut when caught in the strong steel jaw traps. Conibear traps are used to squeeze the neck of animals with immense pressure or water-set traps that make the animals struggle for life over 9 minutes before drowning. In Canada, they carry out government-approved seal killing. Thousands of baby harp seals are shot or beaten with heavy metal rods and killed brutally.
Leather can be obtained from cow, goat, sheep, pig and even the endangered species are not spared like alligator, ostrich, kangaroo, etc. Most of the leather from India and China are exported to other countries as hardly any stringent animal welfare laws are implemented there. In China where dogs and cats are slaughtered for meat, they export the leather obtained from their skin to other countries. Usually, leather is not tagged to know from where it comes.
The sheep fur and skin are in great demand and hence they are just considered as wool producing device. Innocent sheep cannot use their own fur to protect them; instead it is shaved off by the merciless shearers. The shearing shacks can be one of the worst places where cruelty to animals is shown.
Australia has earned its name as the producer of more than 50 percent of world's merino wool. This wool is used in making variety of products from clothes to carpets. But not many are aware that for this the lambs are forced upon a dreadful process known as mulesing. Large portion of skin and flesh are cut from the back of the animal and that too without any sedatives.
The plight of lambs is even worse than sheep. By the time, the little lambs are of few weeks, their ears or holed and tails are severed. Male lambs are castrated as young as 2 weeks old by chopping their testicles or with the rubber ring. The use of rubber ring is one of the most hurting ways of castration. Due to lack of food and proper shelter, hundreds of lambs die every year.
Snakes, alligators, and even lizards are hunted for their skin. They are bludgeoned, starved for days before skinned alive. The spines of the lizards are cut with sharp tools when they reach a saleable size. In Asia, there is considerable illegal trade of tiger fur.
America has few national laws which aim at protecting the endangered species and fur animals. However, the fur farms do not fall under these laws. The fur product labeling act makes it compulsory for all garments in U.S. to be aptly labeled. Furthermore, the dog and cat protection act bans the dog and cat fur trade in America. This is mainly to stop the slaughter of dogs and cats in China from where U.S. gets majority of its animal fur.
Speaking about the international laws, some are much powerful than the U.S. statutes. Today, many countries have strictly prohibited fur farms. UK, Austria and Croatia have banned fur farms, where as New Zealand, Sweden and Switzerland have stringent policies. In Netherland, fox and chinchilla farming is illegal. Over 60 countries have forbidden particular kinds of trap. However, China has practically no laws to protect animals.
When so many beautiful and wise choices are available, it is irrelevant to use fur. One must shun all commodities made from animal skin. Even buying a small fur product supports the brutal business. Since no market can flourish without consumers, it is important to educate the consumers. Even at this minute hundreds of helpless animals are wailing in pain all over the world, with their tears shed in form of blood for our luxuries.
It's high time we realize that every pair of leather shoe in your cupboard encourages the heinous act behind it. Always remember fashion should be delightful and not deadly, certainly not at the cost of speechless creatures.
References:
1. Peta.org
2. Animallaw.info
3. Bornfreeusa.org
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