Since the 1980’s, fur sales have dropped. But thanks to the fur and exotic skins industries’ ad campaigns and outreach to designers, these products occupy the spotlight again. There are no federal legal protections from even the worst living conditions and slaughter on US fur farms, and little regulation regarding trapping. And the increasingly globalized fur and skin trade, the countries that supply us with these products can have an even greater lack of regard for animal welfare.

Fur

Red fox kits. Foxes are one of the most common animals ranched for fur. Photo courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Globally, fifty million animals are killed for the fur trade each year, with China (and its deplorable lack of animal protection) the largest exporter and the United States both one of the top producers and importers.

Ranches

The vast majority of fur comes from animals on fur “farms.” A typical fur farm contains hundreds of animals in usually barren wire cages in open sheds exposed to weather extremes. Conditions are appalling, with filthy cages and piles of feces attracting insects. Animals are often infested with parasites and suffer from a number of diseases. Fur producers may kill animals in a variety of ways: anal electrocution, neck-breaking, poison injection, and gassing.

Trapping

Trappers kill about four million wild animals for their fur each year. Animals often sustain broken bones, deep lacerations, and severed tendons and ligaments in traps. More injuries result as they struggle to escape. Befort trappers check their traps, animals can perish from blood loss, dehydration, injuries, hypothermia, hyperthermia, and predation. Some may gnaw off their trapped limb and escape, only to die later. Trappers kill animals by clubbing, shooting, or suffocation.

Skins

Animals raised or poached for their skins—tigers, kangaroos, leopards, zebras, alligators, crocodiles, snakes, lizards, ostriches, fish, chickens, emus, stingrays, and more—suffer many of the same abuses as those in the fur industry. “Farms” can intensively confine animals by the hundreds in appalling conditions before they slaughter them in agonizing ways, sometimes skinning them alive.

Lynx. Lynx fur is highly prized by the fur industry. Photo courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The exotic skin trade destroys wild populations and fuels underground smuggling. The wildlife trade is the second leading only to habitat destruction in terms of the most serious threat to species survival. Illegal animal trafficking is the third-largest source of illicit income after drugs and arms.

Leather comes from animals who spend their lives on factory farms in miserable conditions, endure painful mutilations, and suffer agonizing slaughter. Leather production also uses a number of environmentally harmful chemicals that pollute the environment and pose health risks to workers.