Fur Essay, Research Paper

Fur is Death

“Every year, the fur industry is responsible for the miserable lives and painful deaths of nearly 40 million animals. Many are suffocated, drowned, or beaten in the wild; however, others are gassed or electrocuted to death on fur farms. These animals endure unspeakable cruelty (fur statistics).” To kill the animals for the fur to keep ourselves warm is wrong. There are many alternative ways to keep us warm. It does not necessarily mean that we have to wear animal skin to keep ourselves warm.

The way these animals are killed for their skin is a gruesome site for anyone. There are many techniques to acquire furs. Some of the ways are by electrocute, gassed, leghold trap, wire snare, conibear body gripping trap (crushes the animal) and many other. “Two out of three are the innocent animals that are not the targets of the fur are killed in order to get the other furbearing animals (McCann).”

There are various types of animals that are targeted by the furbearing farmers and hunters. “The most common animals that are targeted are chinchillas, foxes, minks, coyotes, raccoons, and many others. These are the main animals that are farm for fur. The treatment these animals get while they are being farms for fur is not a good site. The methods used on fur farms are designed to maximize profit, always at the expense of the animal’s welfare and comfort. All these animals live only a fraction of their natural life spans. The animal’s short lives are filled with fear, stress, diseases, parasites, other physical and psychological hardships (fur statistics).”

“Some of these animals are kept in cages that are only 2.5 feet square, with one to four animals per cage. The extreme crowding and confinement are dangerous for the animals. Over crowding the animals might cause self-mutilating behaviors, including pelt, tail biting and abnormalities. They can have contagious diseases such as Aleutian diseases, viral enteritis and pneumonia. Animals are also infested with fleas, ticks, lice, mites, and diseases carrying flies. This is caused because flies are attracted to the piles of excrement from animals; which is not been clean (Merritt).”

Death comes to all people and animals. Some die of old age, illnesses, and tragic pain. Imagine a person being raise just to be killed for fashion wear. Animals go through agonizing pain and death just for their skin. Farmers and hunters use lot of different technique to kill the poor animals to get fur. Their technique’s are that the animals are traps, drowned, beaten to death in wild, gassed, strangled or electrocuted in captivity on fur farms.

“There are various types of traps, including snares, box traps, and cage traps, but the leghold trap is the most widely used. The animal is intended to step on the trigger of this trap, after which two metals jaws bang forcefully shut around its leg. The jammed leg is immediately seriously injured. A strong spring ensures that the animal cannot escape. In its fear and anxiety it tries to disengage itself forcibly causing more injury and pain. Animals in trap are often found to have broken their teeth after biting on the metal of the trap in effort to escape. While one leg remains in the trap, the animal flees on three legs to a likely, slow and painful death by infection. The leghold trap is generally considered a very cruel method of catching animals (Beamer).”

“Animals can languish in traps for days. Up to one out of every four trapped animals escapes by chewing off his or her feet, only to die later from blood loss, fever, gangrene, or perdition (Ibid, pp180-180).” To kill the animals without damaging their fur trappers usually strangle, beat, or stomp them to death. Animals on fur farms may be gassed, electrocuted, poisoned with strychnine or have their neck snapped. These methods are not 100 percent effective and some animal’s wake up while being skinned.

“Although traps are set in order to catch certain species, often they make unintended catches such as dogs, these indiscriminate traps have injured cats, sheep’s, birds, and even toddlers. The animals, usually badly injured, are thrown away and known in the industry jargon as “trash”. Because of the indiscriminate nature of these catching methods, the traps are also a danger to those animals, which are already threatened with extinction. The number of undesired catches, can be extremely high, adding to the tremendous suffering of numerous animals that goes into the making of just one coat (Ibid.).”

Drowning, gassed, and electrocute methods are as cruel as the legtrap. Still they are killed in a painful way. The farmer’s care only about preserving the quality of the fur, they use the methods that keep the pelt intact but which results in severe suffering for the animals still quite attached to the pelts.

“The most popular animal killed for fur is mink. About twenty-six million minks are killed for the fur every year (fur Statistics).” However, the way these minks are raised is not a proper way. They are kept in open sheds that provide little protection from wind, cold, and heat. The animals fur helps keep them warm in winter, but in summer is very hard on minks because they lack the ability to cool their bodies without bathing in water. The only method of euthanasia for mink certified by FCUSA Animal Welfare Committee is pure carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide bottled gas. The animals are immediately rendered unconscious and die without stress or pain.

Some people believe that animals raised in captivity on fur ranching do not suffer. This is not the case. Trapping and ranching have both similar and disparate cruelties involved and neither is humane. Every fur coat represents the intense suffering of up to several dozen animals, whether they were trapped or ranched. These cruelties will only when the public refuses to buy or wear fur products.

“Two out of every five human beings in America own furbearing materials (fur facts).” They think it’s a fashion statement and makes them stand out front of the crowd. They have never thought of how the coat was made, how many animals were killed, or how they were killed. If they knew all this information, they would think twice to buy that beautiful fur coat. Therefore, next times if you buy any kind of fur clothing remember to ask some questions about it. Imagine how you would feel if someone killed you to use your skin as a means for clothing?