August 19, 2009

Help Animals on Chinese Fur Farms

Every year, millions of individual animals, including more than 2 million cats and hundreds of thousands of dogs, are killed for their fur in China. Some are strays, and countless others are companions who once shared homes with people who loved and cared for them before the animals were rounded up often with metal tongs around their necks and tossed, screaming, into a crate.

A timid young rabbit waits, terrified, in a cramped, filthy wire cage. Suddenly, a hand reaches in and roughly grabs her. Her neck is broken. She is then tossed, still convulsing, into a barrel. When it's filled, the barrel is wheeled into another room, where she is skinned.

This horrific abuse is happening right now to countless rabbits and cats and dogs on Chinese fur farms and in Chinese markets. Won't you please help us stop this massive cruelty?

China is one of the world's largest fur suppliers, and more than 95 percent of the country's finished garments are exported with many ending up in North America. And as we now know, Chinese companies have been known to deliberately mislabel cat and dog fur as "Asian jackal," "rabbit," or "raccoon" to fool consumers. Every fur-trimmed collar or other fur item from China, regardless of the kind of animal slaughtered to manufacture it, is the product of cruelty on a truly massive scale. And we must combat it!

We need your help right now. Please make an urgently needed donation to PETA today and help us stop the horrific slaughter of cats, dogs, and other animals for their skin.

The suffering on Chinese fur farms involves all sorts of animals, all of whom are deeply frightened. Powerful video footage taken during a PETA Asia-Pacific undercover investigation documents the misery of rabbits condemned to a short, miserable life and painful death at the hands of grubby fur-farm operators. The investigator saw rabbits who were crammed into filthy cages covered with urine and feces, where they could only wait, petrified, as workers made their way along the tiers of cages.

The rabbits were yanked out of their cages by their ears or legs. The workers aimed at their heads with handheld electrical devices often multiple times as the animals kicked and screamed. The rabbits were then hung upside down and were crudely decapitated. The farm that the investigator visited has 11,000 cages and will be responsible for the slaughter of more than 600,000 animals this year alone in the quest to satisfy the demand for their skins.

Through difficult investigations similar to this one and through decades of relentless campaigning, PETA has saved many thousands of rabbits, dogs, cats, and other animals by convincing consumers and corporations to reject all fur. We've successfully persuaded some of the world's leading designers and retailers including Ann Taylor, Calvin Klein, Polo Ralph Lauren, and Tommy Hilfiger to adopt permanent no-fur policies, and we've made fur so synonymous with suffering that furs are no longer considered "luxury goods," and fur prices have seen record lows.

While we've accomplished much, the wholesale slaughter of so many animals for their fur in China is an urgent matter. To help these animals, we must educate consumers, corporations, and even governments about the pain that goes into every piece of fur trim and every fur cat toy produced in China. That is only part of our work, but it is a vital part.

Please contribute to our work for dogs, cats, and all animals by making a special gift today.

On behalf of all animals, especially those confined and killed for their skins in all parts of the world, thank you.

With the fall fashion season just around the corner, we need to do everything we can to make sure designers, retailers, and consumers know the horrific extent of the animal suffering that takes place on fur farms in China and around the world. Please rush your online donation to PETA today. Together, let's save more animals from being cruelly mistreated and killed for their skin.

December 22, 2008

Donna Karan

Donna Karan has announced that all her fall 2009 lines will be fur-free and that she has "no plans" to use fur in the future. Well done, everyone!

I'm sure that Donna Karan has never thought about any of this or soiled her yoga slippers wading in the muck on a rabbit farm: Rabbits are full of personality and fun, unless they don't know you and what you have in mind, in which case, they tend to be timid and wary. They certainly live on their nerves, every minute, on a fur farm, stuck in their filthy, smelly, grassless, cramped cages - denied any ability to dig or hop over the hills or play tag (which they do, with friends).

I've been to a rabbit farm, and I've watched them being butchered for fur and meat: As on many farms, the man in charge took the scared rabbits by the legs with one hand and cupped his other hand under their jaws and yanked. There was a popping noise. Rabbits don't die when their spines are separated; they are merely paralyzed and start to suffocate, gasping and in pain.

Well, Donna Karan will no longer be responsible for such horrors, and for that, I truly am thankful. I'm sure that you are, too, my friends. So happy holidays!

Posted by Ingrid E. Newkirk