Facts About Fur

In the United States, approximately 4.9 million fur-bearing animals are killed every year by trappers. An additional 3.5 million animals are raised on fur "farms" or "ranches". Worldwide, 50 million animals, including dogs, cats and ferrets, are killed for their fur annually.

Foxes are imprisoned in cages only 2.5 feet square and minks in cages 1 foot by 3 feet, with up to four animals per cage. Caged fur farm animals develop neurotic behaviors such as pacing, turning in endless circles, self-mutilation, and even cannibalization. Most live unnaturally short lives: 5 months for minks, 9 months for foxes.

Animals often languish in traps for days. Up to a quarter of all trapped animals escape by chewing off their own feet, later dying from blood loss, fever, infection, or predation. Beavers drown slowly (up to 20 minutes) in underwater traps.

Each year approximately 5 million dogs, cats, blue jays, owls, chipmunks, swans, golden eagles, and even threatened and endangered species are accidentally crippled and killed by extremely cruel steel-jaw leghold traps. Trapping is allowed on more than half of the National Wildlife Refuge system. Steel-jaw leghold traps are used on half of the NWR land allowing trapping. In a Princeton poll, 74% of Americans believed that steel-jaw leghold traps should be banned.

Trappers usually strangle, beat, or stomp trapped animals to death. On fur farms, animals are gassed, anally electrocuted, poisoned, or their necks are snapped.

It costs more than three times as much energy to make a coat from trapped animal pelts and 60 times as much energy from ranch-raised animal pelts as it does to make a fake fur coat. One 40-inch fur coat requires the deaths of:

· 16 coyotes

· 15 beavers

· 20 otters

· 42 red foxes

· 40 raccoons

· 60 wild minks

· 18 lynx

· 45 opossums

· 100 squirrels

· 50 sables

· 8 seals

· 50 muskrats

A May 2007 Gallup poll indicated that 38% of those polled feel that "buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur" is morally wrong. Among the many "good guys" in the fashion industry who don't use fur are Stella McCartney, Ann Taylor, Betsey Johnson, Eddie Bauer, Todd Oldham, Tommy Hilfiger, Bill Blass, Ann Klein, and The Gap, with others planning on eliminating it from their collections in the near future. And fur sales are down approximately 50% since the late 80s, despite manipulation of statistics in their favor by fur manufacturers.

One of the fur industry's current propaganda points to try to appeal to the environmentalist crowd by claiming that fur is biodegradable. What they fail to mention is that furs are treated with dangerous chemicals to prevent decomposition in the consumer's closet. Toxic chemicals used at fur manufacturing plants pollute streams and cause high cancer rates among workers. Waste from fur farm animals is a major source of water pollution.

The beleaguered fur industry is also trying, with some success, to appeal to the younger, less prosperous consumer by offering cheaper fur-trimmed items. Unfortunately, a lot of this trim is sold as "faux fur", even though it's the real thing. Be aware that what is often labeled "faux fur" may be imported dog and cat fur from China. A bill now in Congress addresses that issue. You can write to your Congressional representative to co-sponsor H.R. 891, the Dog and Cat Fur Prohibition Enforcement Act of 2007. Its purpose is to protect consumers and animals by requiring that all fur products be labeled and by banning the sale of fur from raccoon dogs, who are killed in large numbers in China, sometimes by being skinned alive.

Another current fur industry selling point is that fur is just animal skin without the hair, so if you think it's OK to wear leather, you should have no moral qualms about wearing fur. Fur purveyors are quite correct that there is no clear ethical difference between wearing leather and fur-you should not wear either one, but you can at least make a start by eschewing fur first. How can you help get out the truth about fur? By writing letters to the editor; sending e-mail to, or phoning your legislators to support fur animal protection legislation; participating in traditional Fur Free Friday demonstrations the day after Thanksgiving; informing the managers of stores that sell furs that you as a consumer are unhappy with their policy; writing to fashion magazines that display fur on their pages; and making friends and family aware of the sad plight of millions of fur-bearing animals in the U.S. as well as worldwide.