Furry Facts: Truths from the Fur Trade
Yesterday we learned that vegans are not raging, militant, one-minded jerks who throw blood and refuse talk it out with people who have differing opinions.
Okay, so if we don’t toss paint cans, what do we - vegans and vegetarians - think about fur? What are our opinions about the use of fur as a fashion accessory, and why do we care?
First, a few 
facts to explain why we care so much. The animals used for the fur industry are not found dead. They are also not humanely put to sleep, or raised on a free-range farm. Here, with the help of PETA’s Fur is Dead campaign is what I gather:
* Traps don’t just catch the targets - foxes, minks, etc. - cats, dogs, deer, and even endangered species like bald eagles are injured and killed. They are considered trash by the industry.
* Living on a ranch might sound nice, but to a fox this means 2.5 square feet or 1-foot-by-3-feet for minks. Cages these size are shared by up to five animals.
* “One out of every four trapped animals escapes by chewing off his or her own feet, only to die later from blood loss, fever, gangrene, or predation.”
* To maximize profits, farmers and trappers want to make sure that they get the most connected fur possible from each animal. So the meat industry’s methods of slaughtering - slitting the throat, decapitating - aren’t their M.O. They prefer electrocution, strangulation, gas, poison, stomping, beating, broken necks … and other methods that are not 100 percent effective. Meaning, animals occasionally wake up during skinning.
Well, whew, this is so not the direction that I had intended to go today. But it is all relevant, truthful information that I have been holding back due to its graphic nature, so I think it just came spilling out once I got going.
I’m not done with this topic, but I can promise you that I am done with the gory details.
anti fur, peta fur is dead, fur fashions
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