Fur/Fashion:
Fur:
Each year over 50 million animals are murdered for fashion by the fur industry. Around the world that number is even higher. The majority of the animals spend their entire lives on fur farms where every natural instinct is denied to them. Animals on fur farms often show tell tale signs of insanity such as nervous pacing, self-mutilation and cannibalism. In the end, these animals die a painful death at the hands of the fur farmer.For the millions of animals that are trapped in the wild, the fate is no
better. Often animals caught in traps attempt to chew off their own leg to escape, some bleed to death before the trapper arrives and others succumb to predators. Not to mention, cats, dogs and other "non-target" animals are often caught in these traps as well. Unwanted, these animals are thrown away or let free with fatal injuries. For the animals that do survive until the trapper arrives, death is inevitable.Animals are killed for their fur using such methods as gassing, trapping, anal or vaginal electrocution, neck breaking, stomping, clubbing or drowning. To make one fur coat the following number of animals suffer and die:
12-15 lynx
10-15 wolves or coyotes
15-20 foxes
35 rabbits
60-80 minks
27-30 raccoons
10-12 beavers
60-100 squirrels
200 chinchillas
Leather:
After pigs and cows have suffered from the crowding, confinement, mutilations, stressful transport, and frightening slaughter at the hands of the meat and dairy industries, their skins are made into shoes, boots, belts, gloves, and furniture covers. Skin accounts for more than 55 percent of the total byproduct value of cattle. So, by buying leather products, you will be contributing to the profits of these establishments and augmenting the economic demand for slaughter. Horses, sheep, lambs, and goats are also slaughtered for their meat, as well as for their hides. Many people believe that leather is just a byproduct of the meat industry and that animals are not killed solely for their skin, but this is not the case. Much of the leather in athletic shoes, for example, comes from kangaroos, who are killed for nothing more than their skin.Animals in other countries also suffer for leather sold in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Europe. India is a major leather supplier to the world market. While being herded to slaughter in India, cows have hot chili peppers and tobacco rubbed into their eyes, and their tail bones are painfully twisted and broken in order to make the cows stand up and keep moving. Many of the Indian animals used for leather are so sick and injured by the time they arrive at the slaughterhouse that they must be dragged inside.
The Nov/Dec 1991 issue of the Vegetarian Journal has this to say about leather: "Environmentally turning animal hides into leather is an energy intensive and polluting practice. Production of leather basically involves soaking (beamhouse), tanning, dyeing, drying, and finishing. Over 95 percent of all leather produced in the U.S. is chrome-tanned. The effluent that must be treated is primarily related to the beamhouse and tanning operations. The most difficult to treat is effluent from the tanning process. All wastes containing chromium are considered hazardous by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Many other pollutants involved in the processing of leather are associated with environmental and health risks. In terms of disposal, one would think that leather products would be biodegradable, but the primary function for a tanning agent is to stabilize the collagen or protein fibers so that they are no longer biodegradable."Wool:
Textile mills use nearly four times more imported than domestically produced wool. Much of it comes from Australia. With 118 million sheep, Australia is the world’s top wool producer and exporter. Within weeks of birth, lambs’ ears are hole-punched, and the males are castrated without anesthetics. Extremely high rates of mortality are considered normal on Australian wool farms. 20 to 40 percent of lambs die before the age of 8 weeks, and 8 million mature sheep die every year from disease, exposure, or neglect.
Australian ranchers mainly raise Merino sheep, who are not native to Australia and therefore do not fair well in the harsh conditions. Merinos are bred to have extremely wrinkly skin (which allows for more wool). This unnatural overload of wool causes animals to die of heat exhaustion during summers. The wrinkles collect moisture, which attracts flies and results in maggot infestation known as “flystrike.” Maggots can literally eat sheep alive, so in order to reduce flystrike, ranchers perform a crude operation known as “mulesing.” Mulesing involves carving wide strips of skin from around the lambs’ tails to produce smooth scars that won’t harbor fly larvae. Tail docking (cutting off the sheeps’ tails) is often done in conjunction with mulesing to
reduce feces and urine stains on the wool. Both mutilations are currently performed without the use of anesthesia; however, a new drug called Tri-Solfen is being introduced to reduce pain during mulesing.Unfortunately, the maker of the drug, Bayer, tests the product and many of its other products on animals. Ironically, because of the large bloody wounds caused by mulesing and tail docking, sheep often get flystrike before they heal. According to Australian Law Reform chairperson M.D. Kirby, each year Australian sheep endure more than 50 million operations, such as mulesing and tooth-grinding, that would constitute animal cruelty if performed on dogs or cats.
Many people believe that shearing brings relief to animals that would otherwise be too hot. This is true if done in the summer, but in order to avoid losing any wool, ranchers shear sheep before they would naturally shed their winter coats, resulting in many sheep deaths from exposure to the cold.
When sheep are no longer profitable for wool production, they are slaughtered. They are exported in 14-tiered ships from Australia to the Middle East, a three- to six-week trip during which up to 18 percent of the animals die from the cramped and filthy conditions. Millions of sheep endure this transport, after which they are ritually slaughtered while fully conscious, per year.
Sheep exploited for wool in the U.S. also suffer from inhumane handling and transportation, and they too often face cruel ritual slaughter when they are no longer profitable to the wool industry. Sheep raised in the U.S. do not suffer the agony of live export to the Middle East, but they do suffer the same cruelties of wool production, including painful mutilations that are often done with little or no anesthesia.
Most U.S.-raised sheep and lambs are either raised on factory farms, where they spend their entire lives in filthy, manure-filled warehouses, or they are raised “on the range” without any shelter from extreme weather conditions. Thousands of lambs and sheep die every year from harsh conditions. Thousands more die from transportation, during which sheep are severely overcrowded onto trucks. The non-profit organization Farm Sanctuary has documented dozens of cases of “downed” sheep at auctions and stockyards. Sheep and lambs too weak to even stand are often abandoned on “dead piles” and left to die slowly from neglect. After a lifetime of producing wool, sheep are sent to slaughter. The U.S. slaughters 3 million sheep every year.
Down:
The process of live-pluking is widespread, as more feathers are produced per bird this way. The largest producers of down are China, Poland, and Hungry, where some 60 percent of down produced is live-plucked. Terrified birds are lifeted by their necks with their legs tied and have all of their body feathers painfully ripped out.
The struggling geese sustain injuries and after their ordeal, are thrown back to join their fellow victimsuntil their turn comes around again. This torture, which has been described as "extremely cruel" by veternary surgeons and even goose breeders, begins when the geese are only eight weeks old. It is then repeated at eight week intervals for two or three more sessions. The down industry is a multi-billion dollar industry.The "lucky" ones are what the industry terms, "plucked dead", ie they are killed first, then they are plucked.
Silk:
Silkworms make their cocoons from a shiny fiber that they produce. To obtain silk, the worms are boiled or steamed alive by the thousands. Alternatives include rayon and nylon.
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