On Tuesday January 14, ATV's Live at Five presented a series about the fur industry. They showed how fashionable fur is, how great trapping is for the local economy, and how pleasant it is to be raised in a box in freezing cold temperatures before being anally electrocuted. Here is our response:
To Whom it May Concern:
ATV-CJCH-TV
2885 Robie Street
Halifax, NS
B3K 5Z4
To Whom it May Concern:
On Tuesday, January 14th, one of the Live at Five ads caught my attention. It said “tonight - the fur industry: more controversial than ever.” As an animal rights activist and a member of the public majority who still believes that it is socially and morally unacceptable to wear fur, I tuned in to see what controversial issues you would raise. To my utter disappointment, no issues were raised at all. Instead, I witnessed Liz Rigney actually wearing fur and spouting that it is now fashionable to wear the ripped flesh of other animals as clothing.
Despite what the fur industry says, fur is just as unacceptable as ever before. Cruelty is NEVER in fashion. In fact, the sale of fur coats is down, but the fur industry can claim increased sales of fur through fur trim. By disguising small amounts of fur through shearing, dying, and plucking, furriers are able to market their cruel products to an unknowing public. It is also common for manufacturers to cryptically label the garment. For example, some tags read “all man made material - exclusive of trim.” This is not helpful to the caring consumer who wants to avoid fur. I personally know women who have purchased coats with these tags and assumed it wasn’t real fur not only because of the tags but also because the coats were “inexpensive“ and turquoise. I also have email correspondence from Sears Customer service claiming they haven‘t sold any fur since the 1970‘s. Yet, they have raccoon hats and coats with fox fur trim in their ladies department. Nearly 50% of all fur sales in Canada are in fur trim! Most people who would never wear full length fur coats, simply do not see trim as real fur, especially when it is pink or green.
When I heard the advertisement, I was hoping you would tell something of the animals side of the story. If not for the minks, foxes, beavers, raccoons, squirrels, and chinchillas, then at least the cats and dogs. I thought that perhaps the reason the fur industry has become “more controversial than ever” was in some way related to the Inman family of PEI and their Chocolate Lab who was caught and killed in a snare trap meant to catch other fur bearing animals. This unfortunate tragedy, discussed at large in the PEI media, happened just a few weeks ago and is certainly not an isolated incident. In your program, there was no mention of the dangers of fur trapping. These snares and (even more dangerous) leg-hold traps are placed in the woods and do not discriminate between cats, dogs, children, and foxes.
Of course the “target animal” suffers the pain of trapping as well. Imagine the excrutiating pain of having sharp, heavy metal spikes pierce your skin, grinding against your bones as you struggle to free yourself. Imagine the stress and desperation you would feel unable to move, so affraid that you would actually attempt to chew your own leg off. (It is estimated that 1 in 4 animals chews his or her own leg off only to die later from loss of blood, infection, or predation.) Now imagine laying there bloody, hungry, cold, and panicked for days or weeks, slowly suffering in the reddening snow until either your will to live gives out or the trapper comes back to stomp on your head or crush your lungs, putting an end to your suffering. In the case of beavers the traps are placed in the water. Once the animal is trapped, at the bottom of river or lake, they thrash wildly trying to free themselves for one breath of air. The trashing only makes the metal jaws close tighter. The pain and stress of beavers and other animals caught in traps is well documented, but I don’t need to read case reports to imagine the pain and stress of drowning suddenly with ten metal spikes digging into and breaking bones.
The video you showed of a happy fur farm is certainly not the norm and I even wonder how happy it is when the cameras are not rolling. Most animals on fur farms live their entire lives in tiny cages with one to four animals per cage. They are fed meat and fish by-products so vile that they are unfit even for the pet food industry and get water through nipple systems which often freeze in cold temperatures. The animals are exposed to the cold in the most extreme temperatures to ensure the thickest of coats. They often go mad in their tiny enclosures, and exhibit neurotic tendencies like biting the wire of the cages or each other. No matter how good or bad the life of these animals is, their death is never pleasant. Because the fur farmers care only about preserving the quality of the fur, they use slaughter methods that keep the pelts intact but which result in severe suffering for the animals. They are often gased or poisoned with strychnine, which actually suffocates them by paralyzing their muscles in painful rigid cramps. Larger animals have clamps attached to their lips, rods inserted into their anuses, and are then painfully electrocuted. Gassing and poisoning is not always 100% effective and some animals "wake up" while being skinned.
I’m disappointed that ATV did not represent the animals’ perspective on this controversial issue. Animal Rights Collective of Halifax, ARCH, a local AR group, should have been contacted to present a more balanced story. Mentioning PeTA, an animal rights organization from the US, at the end of your pro-fur coverage does not begin to cover the “other side” of the story. I hope your station will consider following-up this story with a look at why some people still don’t like fur, including animal rights, public safety, and environmental concerns. Please contact me if you would like an interview, more information, or video footage of the suffering endured by fur bearing animals. Also, ARCH is holding several events to counter the fur industry including a demonstration on February 8 as part of the 14th annual National Anti-Fur Day and weekly tabling events to educate the public on the cruelty of fur and fur trim.
Sincerely,
