Put a STOP to SKINNING animals!!

Fur Farms

50 million animals are killed for fur worldwide every year. Approximately 74% of that fur comes from fur farms.

In these fur farms, animals such as mink, rabbits, and even cats and dogs spend their entire lives confined to tiny, filthy cages, constantly pacing back and forth from stress and boredom. They exhibit stereotypical stress behaviour such as self-mutilation and cannibalism, demonstrating that intense confinement drives them insane. 1

Mink

Fur farms can have anywhere from hundreds to thousands of mink.

Let's look at the example of mink, the most common animals raised for fur. In the wild, mink are solitary animals that have a home range of up to 2,500 acres. Fur farms, however, contain anywhere from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of mink. Generally, these animals are housed in individual cages to keep them from killing each other – they are caged together only occasionally, with their own offspring, and then only until sexual maturity. Each cage is about the length of the mink's body – 1 foot by 3 feet. Additionally, they are semi-aquatic animals, and studies have shown that they suffer greatly when denied access to water in which to swim. 2

 

Killing

When it comes time to kill these animals, fur farms utilize one of several methods of slaughter, all of which are approved by the Fur Council of Canada. Larger animals like foxes, bobcats, and lynx are often killed via anal or vaginal electrocution, wherein a clamp is attached to the animal's mouth and a rod is forced into their anus or vagina. Smaller animals like rabbits, mink, and chinchillas are sometimes put into boxes and poisoned with the use of unfiltered engine exhaust. This technique does not necessarily kill the animal, however, and they sometimes wake up while being skinned.

Other methods of killing include lethal injection directly into the stomach with poisons such as chloral hydrate, magnesium sulphate, or nicotine sulphate, possibly in the forms of pesticide. Other methods include gassing, neck-breaking, or simply stunning the animal so they
won't struggle while being skinned. Methods of stunning are often as crude as simply slamming the animal into the ground repeatedly until they are too injured to fight back.3

Footage from a Chinese Fur Farm

 

80 percent of the world's fur, including that sold in countries like Canada and the United States, comes from China.

Much has been made in recent years of a typical technique utilized in many Chinese fur farms; specifically, beating larger animals like dogs to the point that they are too weak to resist and then skinning them alive. Often they are simply swung by the hind legs so that their heads may be slammed against the ground. This is common practice. A bullet would damage otherwise salable pelt. Electrocution and gassing are too expensive for many Chinese fur farms to afford. 4  

This raccoon dog is still alive after having been skinned.

 

Dog and cat fur

Worried that you might be wearing a dog? You should be - the sale of dog and cat fur is legal in Canada.  Workers in fur farms often label dog and cat pelts with "rabbit", "raccoon", or many other more marketable names when exporting them to countries where they would not otherwise sell.5  Canadian labelling laws only require manufacturers to disclose whether fur is being used in a product, not what type of fur it is. 6  And again, the evidence has shown that even labels that clearly state the type of fur cannot necessarily be trusted.

Two million cats and dogs are killed for fur each year in China, many of them stolen pets.7

If you have an inexpensive item with fur trim, don't assume it's fake – the price of dog, cat, and rabbit pelts ranges from just one to six dollars apiece.  Want to be sure you aren't wearing cat or dog?

A German Shepherd being skinned on a Chinese fur farm.

 

Fur Trapping

When it comes to wild animals, fur trapping is enormously detrimental to a number of species, including our very own pets.8 9 About 5 million "non-target" animals are caught by steel jaw leghold traps every year, including pet dogs, cats, owls, eagles, and various endangered species.10 (Read more on the endangered species – and other non-target animals – affected by trapping here.)

These leghold traps, which have been banned in more than 90 countries, are still legal in places like Canada, the U.S., Russia, and Australia.11 Some of these them are even placed underwater, where they ultimately drown any animal – typically beavers, mink, or muskrats – unfortunate enough to be caught in one. The fur industry claims this is humane, despite the fact that it takes these animals ten or even twenty minutes to drown.

A trapper crushing the chest and neck of a fox.

Other common traps are the body grip (or Conibear) trap and the snare trap.

The snare trap is designed to strangle animals or crush vital organs. It becomes tighter as the animal struggles, and the industry has even come up with a term to describe the bloody lymph fluid that fills and surrounds the heads of any canines that are caught – they call it "jellyhead". Like any trap, it is indiscriminate as to what it catches.

Conibear traps, which consist of a pair of metal rectangles meant to snap together and kill the animal quickly, are no less cruel and generally crush animals to death over a period of days. Pet dogs and cats are often common victims of this particular type of trap.

Trappers often wait days to check their traps, which means that trapped animals – who are generally not killed outright – suffer enormously. Some attempt to chew off their limbs in an attempt to escape. When the trapper returns, he or she stomps on the chest or neck of the animal until they die.

 

A fur farm.