For luxury fashionistas, it is too common for them to own costumes and accessories from fur. But behind that lies the brutal truth of the fur industry.
Knowing that fashion from animal hair has a very irresistible beauty, but the naked truth behind it makes people shudder.
As the recent tragic images of the fox in the Finnish zoo is an example. He is fat, weighing up to 19kg – nearly 6 times the weight of a wild animal. This cruel breeding method aims to increase the area of the animal’s skin, thereby increasing the amount of hair obtained on their body. But in return was the excruciating pain of that poor creature.
For many years, animal rights activists have struggled and called out a lot to fight the fur industry. According to statistics from PETA (Animal Protection Organization), 85% of fur used for fashion comes from animal factories.
These “breeding furnaces” can hold thousands and thousands of animals, designed to maximize profits, exploiting the poor creatures to the extreme.
85% of the fur used in fashion comes from pet factories.
The animals raised for fur are the mink and fox the most. There are also squirrels, lynx, rabbits, even hamsters.
Extracted from PETA’s data, 58% of mink farms are present in Europe, 10% in North America, the rest are scattered around the world, such as Argentina, China, Russia…
At the factory, the ferrets are mated once a year. Each birth will have about 3-4 pups/mother, and all will be killed within 6 months (only mink fur is used for fashion).
As for the mothers, they are locked in microscopic cages, have to live in fear, stress, suffering from diseases, parasites… In the end, they only outlive their cubs about 4 years. – 5 years.
The animals raised for fur are the mink and fox the most.
For rabbits, the story is even more gruesome. In the past, millions of rabbits were killed each year for their meat. However, since the fur is used, the rabbits are ridiculously fat, but at the same time the life span is also shortened, only 12 weeks.
According to UN figures, more than 1 billion rabbits are killed each year for their fur – mainly used for clothing and some fashion accessories. But not only that, PETA Asia’s investigations also revealed their miserable life: crammed together in cramped, dirty environments, and even skinned while still alive.
The cause for that abuse also comes from the word “money” . Slaughterhouses want to cut costs as much as possible, and they keep a lot of animals together in a very small cage.
The narrow environment greatly affects animals such as weasels and foxes, which alone can control an area of thousands of acres. They become stressed, agitated, often bite themselves, even eat each other (excerpts from Oxford University research).
The mink is skinned.
In addition, as mentioned above, the method of killing animals is also very controversial. To ensure good fur quality, breeders can use methods of shedding the skin completely, but at the same time making the poor creatures extremely miserable.
One of the methods used is to put the animals in a very large box, and fill it with the exhaust from the truck.
This gas is certainly very toxic, but not necessarily strong enough to cause death, so in many cases animals have been skinned while still awake.
The carcasses of animals that had been skinned were piled up.
Larger animals are even wired at both the mouth and anus, and then let electricity flow through . This method is considered extremely brutal, because although it can cause the animal to die quickly, “animals can remain conscious for 10 to 30 seconds” – according to the American Veterinary Association. That is, they are forced to feel the body slowly dying, while they are fully aware of it?
In addition, poisoning, anesthesia, neck breaking … are also common ways.
One of the biggest harms of the fur industry is environmental destruction. Statistically, it takes 20 times more energy to produce a fur coat than a faux leather one.
To keep furs from decomposing, humans have to use certain chemicals, and these chemicals pose a huge risk of contaminating the environment if leaked.
One of the biggest harms of the fur industry is environmental destruction.
Not to mention, each mink used in the fur industry produces at least 20kg of manure. Multiplying that by the total mink population in the US in 2014 is 3.76 million, that number comes in at around 10,000 tons – enough to have a major impact on the ecosystem in an area.
No one is banning you from using fur products, but understand that doing so is indirectly supporting this ruthless pet industry.
So what to do? This is completely up to you!