Protesters confront fur trade in Seoul

June 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
SEOUL–Fur will be exhibited after all at a June 2, 2011
show by the Italian fashion house Fendi on a new artificial “floating
island” in the Han River in downtown Seoul. But there will be less
fur, city officials said on May 23, after announcing on May 16 that
fur would be banned to avoid confrontation with protesters organized
by the local group Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth.
Fendi “originally planned to present 20 fur items,” reported
Agence France-Presse. “A Seoul city official said Fendi pledged to
‘redesign’ the lineup to reduce the number of fur items displayed.”
In response, Coexist-ence of Animal Rights on Earth “called for
protesters to picket the show,” AFP added.

European Union follows U.S. in reinforcing truth in fur labeling

June 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2011:
STRASBOURG, WASHINGTON D.C.–Updated European Union and U.S.
truth-in-fur-labeling legislation will be in effect by the start of
the 2011-2012 “fur season.”
Beginning the day after U.S. Thanksgiving, called “Fur-Free
Friday” by anti-fur protesters, and ending at Valentine’s Day, the
“fur season” annually accounts for two-thirds or more of all retail
fur garment sales.
The new European Union regulation requires that clothing makers
must include the phrase “contains non-textile parts of animal origin”
in labeling any garment containing fur, leather, feathers, or any
other material of animal origin.

Cartoon keeps seal hunt in the spotlight

May 1, 2011 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:

TORONTO–Just when Atlantic Canadian sealers
imagined it might be safe to go back in the
water, because maybe no one was watching with
cameras this year, a cartoon seal walked into a
bar and attracted media notice from St. Johns,
Newfoundland, to Vancouver, British Columbia.
“PETA printed clever coasters and distributed
them in bars around Toronto,” explained
Treehugger blogger Lloyd Alter. Drawn by New
Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss, the coasters
showed a sad-eyed seal telling a bartender,
“Anything but a Canadian Club.”

Oslo Fashion Week bans fur from catwalk

January 1, 2011 juanitoG Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2011:

OSLO--Oslo Fashion Week founder Pål Vasbotten on January 8, 2011 confirmed to ANIMAL PEOPLE that the only Norwegian fashion event of global note has banned fur from the catwalks. Oslo Fashion Week, held twice a year since 2004, will next be celebrated from February 15 through February 21, 2011.

Unconfirmed reports quoting Vasbotten with a variety of different attributions circulated for more than two weeks before the Oslo Fashion Week web site first mentioned the ban by including a third-hand account by Katherine Sweet of the fashion publication Radar. Sweet reported that Vasbotten told The Huffington Post that banning fur from the catwalk “has been a very natural choice for us because we do not want [Oslo Fashion Week] to appear as an arena in which to promote products based on the treatment of animals [as] prohibited by animal welfare concerns in several countries.” Read more

U.S. retail fur industry didn’t get big holiday bounce–& did get Truth in Fur Labeling Act

January 1, 2011 juanitoG Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2011:

WASHINGTON D.C.-– Experiencing sales declines of 15.5% in 2008 and 7% in 2009, U.S. retail furriers ballyhooed hopes for a big comeback during the 2010 holiday season. But the first available sales data suggests they didn’t get it.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported that apparel sales were up 2.7%. But the increase came mostly at department stores, whose sales were up 2.8%, not at high-end luxury boutiques.

The department store contribution to the U.S. retail fur trade consists chiefly of selling inexpensive fur-trimmed garments, mostly made abroad.

The biggest news for that branch of the fur trade during the 2010 holiday season was that U.S. President Barack Obama on December 18 signed into law the Truth in Fur Labeling Act.

Taking effect in March 2011, the Truth in Fur Labeling Act “finally closes a loophole in federal law that currently allows some animal fur garments to go unlabeled if the value of the fur is $150 or less, leaving consumers in the dark as to whether they are buying faux or animal fur,” explained Humane Society Legislative Fund president Mike Markarian. Read more

Coffee fad revives civet farming (long version)

November 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2010

DENPASAR, HANOI–Just seven years after
China banned civet farming because of the
association of civet consumption with more than
800 human deaths from Sudden Acute Respiratory
Syndrome, a vogue for pricy civet coffee has
brought the industry back perhaps bigger than
ever–and certainly in many more places.
Sold to coffee snobs as kopi luwak, the
Indonesian word for it, civet coffee is brewed
from the beans that civets excrete after eating
coffee berries, one of their favorite foods.
Civet coffee is by reputation stronger and
usually more aromatic than most coffees.
Collecting and salvaging the excreted
beans from wild civets is so laborious that civet
coffee, known for centuries, has historically
been so costly to produce as to be consumed only
in small amounts by the very rich and jaded. But
civet farming in coffee-growing country has
brought civet coffee within occasionally reach of
the merely affluent–at prices of from $50 to
$100 a cup.

Coffee fad revives civet farming

November 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2010:

EU seal pelt ban upheld

October 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)
LUXEMBOURG–European Court of Justice Judge Marc Jaeger on
October 28, 2010 rejected an appeal against the European Union ban
on the import of seal products, clearing the way for full
enforcement–at least pending the outcome of Canadian and Norwegian
government appeals to the World Trade Association.
The appeal was brought by Inuit sealer Tapirilt Kanatami and
15 co-plaintiffs, including the Canadian Seal Marketing Group, the
Fur Institute of Canada, NuTan Furs, the Inuit Circumpolar
Conference Greenland, and GC Reiber Skinn AS of Norway. Adopted in
July 2009, the EU ban on imports of seal products included an
exemption for seal pelts hunted and sold by Inuit. The appeal
contended that Inuit seal pelt sales would suffer as result of the
ban, despite the exemption. Justice Jaeger ruled that the
plaintiffs lacked evidence to document this claim.
The European Union ban officially took effect on August 20,
2010, but the European Court of Justice on August 19 stayed
enforcement against the plaintiffs.
The Inuit kill about 10,000 adult seals per year. The
Atlantic Canada commercial hunt kills about 325,000 juvenile seals
per year.

Fur trade thwarts anti-fur legislation

September 1, 2010 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)
BRUSSELS, TEL AVIV, SACRAMENTO–Fur trade lawyers and
lobbyists three times in less than 40 days kept anti-fur legislation
from taking effect.
The European Union ban on imports of seal products, mostly
pelts, officially took effect on August 20, 2010, more than a year
after final passage in July 2009, but the European Court of Justice
on August 19 stayed enforcement against the plaintiffs in a lawsuit
seeking to overturn the ban, brought by the Canadian Seal Marketing
Group, the Fur Institute of Canada, NuTan Furs, the Inuit
Circumpolar Conference Greenland, and GC Reiber Skinn AS of Norway,
as well as individual hunters and trappers. Among them, the
plaintiffs include most of the sealing industry. The General Court
gave them until September 7 to file arguments against the ban. A
verdict is due before the start of the 2011 Atlantic Canada sealing
season.

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