Why You Shouldn't Be Wearing Even Faux Fur Trims

The videos of live-skinning are out there. I've watched them. They include some of the most horrible images I have ever seen, and just thinking back to them makes me nauseous. For those of you who haven't seen them and who can't bring yourself to, Michelle of Animal Blawg has done the difficult for you, and she has described what she saw in "Live Skinning Raccoon Dogs and Other Tales from the Fur Farm." What she describes matches what I remember seeing. If you can't bear even to read the description, still wander over to the post to read what Michelle has to say after the play-by-play.

A couple years ago, HSUS confirmed via investigation that much "faux" fur used in jacket trims and the like isn't actually fake. When you pick up that trimmed sweater, jacket, or pair of gloves from your favorite department store, you could easily be holding in your hands the fur of a raccoon dog--who was skinned alive in China so that people could look "fashionable." (Not even funky colors mean your fur is fake--it means only that whatever your wearing, real or not, was dyed.) Additionally, millions of domestic dogs and cats are killed (many of them skinned alive) for fur each year too.

But it makes no difference whether the fur comes from a fox, mink, raccoon, rabbit, dog, or cat; whether the killing took place in China or the United States; whether the animal was tortured and killed via trapping, live-skinning, maddening confinement and strangulation, or anal electrocution (as is done on many American fur farms--yes, seriously). Regardless of where the fur originally came from, it's cruel, unnecessary, and wrong. And wearing truly fake fur is part of the problem too (explanation after the jump).

Many of the people who buy fur-trimmed items are indeed people who would never dream of wearing any kind of real fur, regardless of the animal--I imagine there are even people who avoid both fur and leather and yet still wear "faux" fur trims. I hope that if you're one of them, you'll stop buying even the stuff labeled fake for two reasons: again, you may still be wearing real fur for which an animal was tortured and killed, and you're helping validate an inexcusably cruel and unnecessary industry.

You might have expected tips on how to distinguish real fur from fake fur in this post, but you won't get that from me. Why? There's no reason to purchase even fake fur. It promotes the idea that fur is stylish and makes ascertaining when something is real fur difficult. This very situation--real fur being passed off as fake--is a significant problem. And the solution is to stop wearing all of it, to stop seeing and using fur--real or fake--as human clothing. The prevalence of fake fur makes the selling and wearing of real fur more acceptable and easier to get away with. And that should bother everyone who cares about animals.

And while you're at it, take the next logical step, would ya? Ditch animal skins in the form of leather too, unless you're OK with funding the abuse and slaughter of cows, calves, and other animals (expect a separate leather post soon).