Cruel Fur Farming and Trapping

The fur industry imposes horrific cruelty, confinement, psychological torture, severe neglect and torture on animals farmed and hunted for fur—all for a product that is completely unnecessary today. Fur farms are places of unimaginable cruelty. When people buy or wear fur, they support the violence, exploitation, suffering and death of these innocent creatures that are confined and locked in small wire cages their entire short life – the prison of a fur farm.

About Fur Farming

The fur farming industry is mainly located in Europe, China, Russia, Argentina, Canada and the United States. Animals raised on fur farms include rabbits, sable, fox, lynx, minks, chinchillas, and raccoon dogs (mainly raised in China only). Raccoon dogs raised on Chinese fur farms are sold under deceptive advertising and marketing labels identified as faux fur or labeled as another type of animal. China has also been found to raise cats as well for fur, and because cats and dogs are deceptively mislabeled for fur to retailers, domestic cats and dogs in China are often stolen from their owners or kidnapped from the streets and sold to the fur markets.

Inside a Russian-Siberian Fur Farm (BBC News) (Length: 3:53 Minutes)

How 40 sable animals are turned into (1) fur coat.

The Life of Minks and Foxes on a Wisconsin U.S. Fur Farm (PETA UK) (Length: 3.07 minutes)

Wisconsin is the top mink-producing state in the United States, and this footage from a huge fur farm called Dillenburg Fur Farm, LLC, that reveals how thousands of minks and scores of foxes are kept in rows of filthy, wire-floored cages with their own waste piled high below their cages. These animals are slaughtered to make fur coats and collars for shoppers all over the world.

About Fur Trapping

Another method of the fur industry is trapping wild animals. Fur trapping kills millions of animals every year in painful, archaic steel-jaw traps, where the animals are left to languish and suffer for hours and days on end before being killed. Targeted wild animals include coyotes, wolves, raccoons, bobcats, opossums, nutria, beavers, otters, and other fur-bearing animals, but often non-target animals are victims of trapping as well. The traps used cause the animals to suffer lingering and often slow, painful deaths. In addition, the bi-product of trapping is many other innocent animals are caught in the traps unintentionally including dogs, cats, and other wildlife, and even endangered species.

Fur farming and fur trapping for the clothing industry is entirely unregulated, so animals raised on fur farms or are trapped are completely unprotected and these businesses do not meet any type of humane standard or regulations from country governments.

To keep the animal’s fur intact, trappers kill the animals inhumanely often crushing them, beating them, or strangling them to death and fur farmers will use painful electrocution, poisoning, will break their necks or gas them.

Cull of Wild – The Truth About Trapping(Animal Protection Institute) (Length: 30 minutes)

Life On A Fur Farm

• fur animals are confined into packed, crowded, small wire cages together
• fur animals experience horrible stress, fear, severe anxiety, boredom, sickness, disease and constant physical discomfort and psychological torment
• fur animals do not receive any veterinary or medical care, when they are sick, injured or when needed
• fur animals experience anxiety-induced psychosis from overcrowding, confinement and constant stress
• fur animals live with and endure physical injuries, including broken legs, limbs, bites, and wounds from stress and overcrowding, and will chew their own limbs off in distress
• fur animals are exposed to scorching heat, freezing temperatures and harsh weather conditions with zero protection from the elements
• fur animals often are so stressed by their crowded conditions that they cannibalize each other—they attack and kill each other
• fur animals are deprived and prevented from expressing any natural behaviors
• fur animals are killed in a number of brutal, agonizing ways in order to protect the pelt – including painful electrocution, being poisoned, having their necks broken, are gassed, or in the worst cases, are skinned alive. 

Exposing The Fur Industry (Montreal SPCA) (Length: 4.58 minutes)

Alanna Devine from the Montreal SPCA and Lesley Fox from The Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals give LUSH Cosmetics N.A. an inside look at the horrific conditions for animals raised on fur farms.

What You Can Do

• Don’t ever buy or wear fur— Even faux fur can send the wrong message about wearing fur. Wearing faux fur can still endorse wearing fur, even if it is faux. Refuse to buy any fur at all including fur-trimmed clothing.
• Don’t patronize any retail store or online that sells fur—and let them know why, how you feel about fur, and that you care about animals, and want to stop their suffering and unnecessary death.
• Tell retailers that sell fur —how you feel about the fur industry, and that you will not patronize the store or support them as a customer. Tell them that you know how extremely cruel fur is and that it causes animals’ deep suffering.
• Watch out— for buying and wearing FAUX FUR. Frequently what is labeled as faux fur or synthetic fur is actually the fur of domestic dogs and cats, or raccoon dogs from China. Avoid faux fur altogether.
• Share with friends and family—On social media. Raise awareness about the brutality of the fur industry and ask them to join you in not buying or wearing fur. Expose the cruelty. Share this page.
• Speak up—Help raise awareness and consciousness by sharing these short videos and ask friends and family to watch them too.
• Sign petitions— Against the fur industry and help get signatures that ask for bans on fur farming and fur sales.
• Share the truth— About the cruelty of fur, fur farms and fur trapping on social media — spread the word!
• Watch films about fur—Learn the truth and share it with others.
• Write letters to the editors of fashion magazines—That feature fur in ads or on models, and explain how the industry is causing widespread suffering and pain for animals, and ask them not to feature animal fur in their magazines. Then stop purchasing the magazine.
• If you think you have purchased or have seen apparel in a retail store—that is falsely advertised and misrepresented, report it to the store and you can report it to the Humane Society of the United States here.

Chinese Fur Investigation Reveals Cruelty – Humane Society of the U.S.

There are no regulations governing fur farms in China—farmers can house and slaughter animals however they see fit. The investigators found horrors beyond their worst imaginings and concluded, “Conditions on Chinese fur farms make a mockery of the most elementary animal welfare standards. In their lives and their unspeakable deaths, these animals have been denied even the simplest acts of kindness.”

Photo Credit: Fur Free Alliance / PETA