Fur
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1992:
* Fur Free Friday will be November 27
this year—the day after Thanksgiving, the
traditional start of the peak fur sales season.
Friends of Animals and Animal Rights
Mobilization are coordinating events in
numerous locations. Get details from FoA at
212-247-8120, and from ARM at 303-388-
7120.
* The Committee of Jews for
Compassion is taking out a series of full-page
ads in Jewish newspapers to publicize Tel
Aviv chief Sephardic rabbi Haim David
Halevi’s recent ruling that Jewish law forbids
manufacturing or wearing fur because it for-
bids causing pain to animals. Write CJC c/o
CHAI, P.O. Box 3341, Alexandria, VA
22302.
* The Humane Society of the U.S. is still
offering preprinted “Shame of Fur” billboard
ads at no cost to any group who rents bill-
board space. Call 202-452-1100 for details.
HSUS also continues to collect reports of pets
and people who have been accidentally
injured in traps.
* An anti-fur TV spot produced for
Noah’s Friends by Rob Schapiro and Ty
Harper of the Earle Palmer Brown advertising
agency in Richmond, Virginia, has earned
honors in five major ad industry competitions,
including a division first at the New York film
festival—but most commercial stations are
refusing to air it, possibly because furriers
spent from $20 million to $26 million per year
on TV advertising during the 1980s.
However, now that fur sales have slumped to
half of the 1988 level, the fur ad budget is
fast shrinking. (Noah’s Friends may be
reached c/o P.O. Box 36197, Richmond, VA
23235; 804-320-7090.)
* The Macy’s flagship store in Herald
Square, Manhattan, no longer includes a fur
boutique—but the Macy’s chain continues to
sell fur via its Bullock’s subsidiaries.
* Only three fur garments appeared in
the 118-page fall fashion supplement to The
New York Times this year. Two of the three
were dyed to look like something else.
* A decision is pending in the California
Department of Fish and Game’s attempt to
overturn a ban on leghold trapping in Nevada
County, approved by county voters in 1988.
Arguments were heard in the case on August
31; defending the ban was Sierra Club Legal
Defense Fund attorney Larry Silver, who told
ANIMAL PEOPLE that he expected a ver-
dict by December 1. The loser, either way,
is expected to appeal, and the verdict in the
appeal will set a precedent in California either
for or against wildlife-related regulation at the
community level.
* After Ohio wildlife rehabilitator and
journalist Donna Robb identified numerous
violations of state wildlife laws by obtaining
nuisance trappers’ annual reports via the Ohio
Open Records Act, the state Division of
Wildlife changed the rules so that the reports
need no longer be filed. Instead, inspectors
will monitor the reports when necessary in the
trappers’ own homes. “The Open Records
Act states that a public office can’t avoid pub-
lic disclosure of records by transferring cus-
tody of those records to another person or
office,” Robb responded. “Does anyone
know a lawyer who’s willing to pursue this?”
(Call ANIMAL PEOPLE if you are such a
lawyer.) Last year, Robb discovered that,
“The Division of Wildlife considers the
release or sale of furbearers to fenced raccoon
hunting clubs ‘release to the wild.’”
* St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, allocat-
ed $8,000 in early August toward attracting an
alligator-and-nutria pelt tannery into the com-
munity, to stimulate alligator hunting and
nutria trapping. Parish president Lynn Dean
said he would veto the appropriation as
“ridiculous,” noting that a similar tannery
elsewhere in the state recently went broke.
Then Hurricane Andrew devastated the local
alligator and nutria populations, at least for a
couple of years.
