Some 85 percent of fur now comes from animals raised on farms,
though opponents say that animals live in terrible conditions and are
killed inhumanely. Mink and foxes are the two most-farmed wild animals
used for furs. Others include chinchilla, lynx, muskrats and coyotes.
Here a mink and a red fox square off in the wild.
Image: Getty Images
-
What a Plant Knows
How does a Venus flytrap know when to snap shut? Can it actually feel an insect’s tiny, spindly legs? And how do cherry blossoms know when to bloom? Can they...
Read More »
Dear EarthTalk: How is the fur industry doing these days? Has it been impacted by activism from PETA and similar groups?
-- Clara Andrews, Edmonds, WA
An accurate source of up-to-date numbers is hard to come by, but it’s safe to say that the fur industry has been hurt by the ongoing and very visible anti-fur campaign—sometimes featuring top supermodels—by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and other animal rights groups.
Whether or not activist efforts are the cause, the governments of the United Kingdom and Austria have banned fur farming in their countries altogether, while The Netherlands has phased out fox and chinchilla farming. The U.S. has not taken any action against the industry, but the number of mink farms in the U.S. has plummeted from 1,027 in 1988 to less than 300 today, according to Weekly International Fur News.
But while the fur industry’s sales numbers may have trailed off through the 1990s, resurgence in the popularity of fur—especially among newly affluent high-fliers in Russia and China—has meant that business is booming for those furriers serving such far-flung markets.
By 2004 the industry was reporting banner sales—some $11.7 billion worldwide—despite the slumping post-9/11 economy. “Fur remains big with international designers and is set to continue as an integral part of fashion,” International Fur Trade Federation (IFTF) chairman, Andreas Lenhart, told reporters.
According to IFTF data, the vast majority of the fur industry's pelts—upwards of 85 percent—now come from farm-raised animals. (This does mean, though, that 15 percent are still caught in the wild, often by trapping methods that are painful as well as indiscriminate, catching unintended quarry, including endangered species and domestic pets.) The most farmed such animal is the mink, followed by the fox. Chinchilla, lynx, muskrats and coyotes are also farmed for their fur. PETA reports that 73 percent of the world’s remaining fur farms are in Europe, while about 12 percent are in North America.
IFTF argues that fur farming has environmental benefits, such as providing good use for 647,000 tons of animal by-products each year from Europe’s fish and meat industries alone (they are fed to the captive animals), and generating a lot of manure, sold as organic fertilizer. Mink farming also provides fat for soaps and hair products, says IFTF.
Of course, anti-fur activists don’t see it this way. “The amount of energy needed to produce a real fur coat from ranch-raised animal skins is approximately 15 times that needed to produce a fake fur garment,” says PETA. “Nor is fur biodegradable, thanks to the chemical treatment applied to stop the fur from rotting.” PETA adds that these same chemicals contaminate groundwater near fur farms if not handled responsibly.
Activists are also concerned, of course, about the conditions animals endure on fur farms. “The animals—who are housed in unbearably small cages—live with fear, stress, disease, parasites and other physical and psychological hardships...” reports PETA. The group adds that the animals are killed in very inhumane ways—such as by electrocution, gassing or poisoning—to preserve the quality of the pelts above all else.
CONTACTS: PETA, peta.org; IFTF, iftf.org.
EarthTalk is produced by E/The Environmental Magazine. SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php. EarthTalk is now a book! Details and order information at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalkbook.
See what we're tweeting about
15 Comments
Add CommentHas not been hurt too much here in Alaska. PETA is (admittedly) afraid of operating Alaska.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can't wait to start seeing coats made of human skin. As long as humans are raised on farms, I don't see how it matters how they're killed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey, skin is skin.
Blatant disregard for life.
Fur farming has only been outlawed in countries where the industry was too small to generate any serious money.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDenmark is phasing out fox, but not mink, and Holland has phased out fox and chinchilla, but not mink - obviously because these two countries each produce 25-50% and 10% of the world's mink pelts.
And, at least in Denmark, while the number of farms have gone down, the remaining farms have grown bigger. The number of pelts produced hasn't really changed.
But human skin is not so warm and kinda weak..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am all for using matinees as food; bring them back from endangered and a new food source AND clean all those "chock weed" filled lakes. but no one will go for it.
Heh, Russia and China....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt the end, the only people who still wear fur, are tacky old geezers, or tacky, gold chain-wearing, nouveau riche from the Third World....
But this article may make me send a contribution to PETA.
I'm tired of hypocrites murdering tomatoes and onions and other plants, like they don't even have souls. How can people abort the babies of wheat stalks and crush them into flour for their bread, and then oppose abortion?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt just doesn't make sense.
And I am tired of idiots, who can't seem to grasp, what a sentient being is....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBTW, sentience does not seem to be a property either of wheat stalks, or of fetuses (human or not.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are just a genocidal anti-plant kingdom ... kingdomist! Stop murdering the unborn wheat stalks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder how many animals would protest.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBlatant disregard for humans.
@EvolvingApe , Dude, please don't send your money to PETA. Watch this episode of Penn and Teller's bullsh*t on them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0exLa6saV9o
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey use donation money to fund lab bombings, as well as putting down two thirds of the animals that they "save".
If you must donate somewhere try http://www.friendsofanimals.org/
they build santuarys.
Peta's sexist anyway. 'Oh noes, don't exploit the cute fuzzy animals! Here, exploit these womens!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfroynlaven - What a great link you provided to Penn & Teller's aptly named "Bullshit" video! Penn Gillett, the bulbous, greasy haired, gratuitously obscene speaking member of the pair doesn't like PETA, presumably because they're outspoken and because they care about animals. And they support their position with an impressive array of video clips. There's the guy from the Center for Consumer Freedom, a front group for the fur, meat, and other animal abuse industries. He's fat, just like Penn Gillette. Then there's Dennis Prager, a notorious member of the right wing noise machine. He's fat, too. Chickens are stupid, Prager tells us, so they presumably don't suffer or experience terror. We have nothing to apologize for, if meat packing plants make the concentration camps of the Nazi's look like vacation spots.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese obese a-holes all subscribe to the doctrine of human exceptionalism, which maintains that we humans are so wonderful, it doesn't matter what we do to other species. Who wouldn't be inspired by Penn Gillette, dressed all in leather (subtle touch there!) gobbling down mounds of burgers and ribs and pausing in his lip smacking repast to instruct us in the "real" meaning of ethics. (Hey, it's just a personal fetish, right, Penn?)
I'm not a big fan of PETA, because they're too quick to kill what they regard as "unsalvageable" animals; but that doesn't mean their basic philosophy is wrong. And it doesn't make me any more sympathetic to an immoral, self-centered, slobbering bag of cr*p like Penn Gillette or his androgenous shrimp of a side kick. I say, run 'em through the meat processor, turn them both into steaming piles of ground meat, and serve them up to other meat eaters, like you, perhaps.
Okay, I understand what they stand for, and I like their ideas, however I do not condone the way they go about doing so. I eat meat, sure, on that same note though, I do not eat a lot of meat for varying reasons (I'm saying that I'll eat meat once or twice a week) but mostly because I just do not feel like it. I don't want any suffering for my consumption, but this is a sad fact of life, in order for survival of one organism, another has to die whether it be plant or meat. Sure, plants are not sentient, but it still dies when you eat it. I'm not siding up with the carnivores here or siding up with people who thing animal rights is a bunch of bull, it's just the food chain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow what is unfair is how the animals are treated. The processing of it. I actually do not get my meat from the grocer anymore because of this. I instead go to our local butcher who gets his produce from local farms. This way, when I do crave some meat now and then, I can feel a little better that some of the 'processing' is taken out of the picture. Ideally I'd like to be able to sustain my own food sources, like raise a few chickens and grow my own veggies, but I live on the outskirts of a major city and in an apartment and I do believe that's frowned upon around here...
All I'm saying is that we do not have to stop eating dead animals, but on the same note, we do not have to support the big industry that abuses not only animals but it's workers and then environment. By making better choices we can make ourselves better and our surroundings more tolerable.
Eat jellyfish. They have no central nervous systems or brains, and thus are a meat that can't suffer. And they're taking over the ocean.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr, just keep murdering plants and pretend you're not a murderer :)