Fur Farming

Millions of fur-bearing animals including foxes, raccoons, minks, beavers, otters, and others suffer and die on fur farms each year.

85% of the fur industry’s skins come from animals living captive in fur factory farms.

The other 15% percent of the fur sold comes from animals caught in the wild.

If you stop and think about it for a second, you will quickly realise that traps are indiscriminate: they catch anything that stumbles upon them. Every year many unsuspecting animals – like dogs, cats, birds, and other animals, including endangered species, are 'accidentally' crippled or killed by traps. The trappers call these animals 'trash kills' because they have no market value, and most are simply just thrown away. Any animals who manage to survive the ordeal are released and often die later from their injuries.

You wouldn’t wear your dog or cat’s fur would you?

More than fifty percent of the finished fur garments imported for sale across the world are from China. A lot of fur from China comes from cats and dogs and is often deliberately mislabeled as mink or fox to be sold to unsuspecting customers. So think about this the next time you consider a coat with a fur trim... there's no way to tell whose skin you're wearing!

Animals raised for their fur live in shocking conditions, not much different to caged chickens. Rabbits only have the floor space of two shoeboxes!

Species like the mink would usually occupy 2,500 acres in the wild, not far from riverbanks or wetlands, and spend up to 70% of their life in the water. On fur farms they are forced to live in cages which don’t allow them to take more than 5 paces forward or back, and obviously no where near the water they love. They live a solitary life, therefore when living in crowded cages it causes them undue stress, which can often lead to self mutilation.

Foxes may also lead a solitary life, only meeting up for breeding season. Some do live in family groups, but keep away from other packs. In confinement they have been found to cannibalize each other as a reaction to their crowded living space. They live in cages about 40cm square… with another fox! It is estimated that fox farmers lose 20% of their animals prematurely – half of those deaths result from cannibalism.

Chinchillas are another favourite to the fashion industry due to their thick coats. As many as 60 hairs sprout out of one follicle. They are very social little animals, living in colonies among rocks or living deep burrows. They are quite partial to a dust bath! Therefore they don’t live very well in an open mesh cage – nowhere to hide, nowhere to bathe.

Chinchilla farmers proudly admit that most of their chinchillas are killed by breaking their necks or by electrocution. The chinchilla is a small animal (slightly larger than a squirrel), and it can take as many as up to 150 of them to die in order to make a single full-length fur coat! Although it is illegal to hunt wild chinchillas, the wild animals are now on the verge of becoming extinct because of the illegal hunting that continues.

In China, there are no regulations governing fur farms - farmers can keep and slaughter the animals however they see fit – which means usually skinning the animals alive to keep costs low. The animals get thrown onto a pile on other dead animals, often with their hearts still beating, their eyes still blinking.

In other countries death usually comes by anal or vaginal electrocution. Many chinchilla farmers hook one metal clamp to the ear, and another to her genitalia to implement the electrocution. Being electrocuted causes the animal to have an excruciating heart attack. Other cruel methods include gassing, being poisoned with strychnine injections, or breaking their neck.

None of the above methods are always 100% effective and some animals "wake up" while being skinned.

So don't buy fur. Animals grow it keep themselves warm, not us.

Got Milk?

As I sit here chowing down on my dairy free chocolate (God bless Sweet Williams) and realise how SLACK I have been with my blog (ok not so much slack, but more so busy) I thought I would do a write up on the dairy industry - for those of you who don't understand why vegans are against milk.

For starters.... think about why mothers produce milk. You don't need much time to think about this one do ya? Duh it's for their children. So why is that humans drink the milk that is made for a baby calf? Hmmm good question. Why do we? Is it because someone thought one day "that calf seems to enjoying that... maybe I will too?"...

Lets look at it another way. What does the baby calf drink if we take away their milk? Nothing. Why's that? Because you don't need nutrition when you're dead. That's right - they die. And not because they aren't fed - it's because they are killed. Veal is the by-product of the dairy industry. So if you drink milk - you support the annual slaughter of 1 million, 5 day old calves.

Dairy cows are constantly impregnated. Once they have their calf they are lucky to spend 24hrs with it before it is taken away. Cows are very social creatures and mourn the loss of their child, calling out for it. I'm sure it would sound very distressing! During their mourning period they are milked for everything they got - literally - only to be impregnated again in 6-9 weeks. And starts again the vicious cycle that is their life...until of course they are too old to produce decent yields of milk anymore and then they become the cheap steak you buy in Woolies & Coles.

They are milked so often and so hard their udders get swollen and infected. The cows are then pumped with antibiotics... which, along with the pus, end up in your milk. I'm not saying this to gross you out - well maybe I am - but it's also the truth. The sad sad sick truth.

Breeding and genetic manipulations mean that a dairy cow can produce up to 50L of milk per day. That’s 10 times the milk that any calf would need!! 

Do you need anymore reason to consider picking up a carton of Soy Milk and giving it a go? It may take getting used too... but knowing there is no cruelty, or pus, involved - that's gotta be a good feeling right?