The hairy truth about the fur industry

A little over two years ago, it came out that clothing by several prominent companies, such as Rocawear, Tommy Hilfiger, Oscar de la Renta, Michael Kors, and Baby Phat, had been made with dog fur that was incorrectly labeled as faux fur or “raccoon fur.” People were outraged, and members of Congress even tried to pass a bill, the Dog and Cat Fur Prohibition Enforcement Act, to ensure that consumers would not be misled when buying clothes.

The whole scandal really made me wonder how much information we ever get when buying clothes – as an article by the Humane Society of the United States pointed out, people who think they are buying faux fur might actually be buying real fur. There’s even a loophole in the law that states that if there is at least $150 of fur trim on an item of clothing, it is allowed to be sold without a label. This seems ridiculous to me… if you’re paying more for an item, you should be able to know what it’s made of! Imagine spending hundreds of dollars on what you thought was a faux fur coat, only to discover that it was made of dog fur!

One of the most unsettling things about the fur industry is the shadiness behind its practices. Just by typing “fur industry” into Google, I found pages upon pages of horrible stories. Animals in fur farms are kept in confined conditions (often in small cages with limited space) and are killed in sickening ways, like anal electrocution, neck-snapping, and gassing, to preserve their fur. Some don’t even die immediately and are skinned alive, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA). Those who are trapped in the wild are caught in heavy traps, often for days on end, although they rarely die right away. There are videos with undercover footage of the cruel practices on fur farms, but I didn’t have the heart (or the stomach) to watch them. Just reading the stories was enough for me to renounce wearing fur entirely.

PeTA is a big opponent of the fur industry, but since many consider their tactics (such as throwing paint on people wearing fur – more on this in another post!) extreme, I figured I’d get most of my background information from a more moderate source, the Humane Society. They have a great webpage called “Infurmation” with facts and statistics about the fur industry, as well as a handy guide of retailers who have refused to use fur in their clothing.  Check it out!