Fur notes
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:
Depressed global fur markets have reportedly kept a large percentage
of Russian pelt production on the domestic market, bringing a
domestic fur boom. Russian fur exports dropped last year from $62 million
in 1992 and $64 million in 1993, to just $30 million worth in 1994.
IBAMA. the Brazilian wildlife protection agency, intercepted
an average of 26,000 poached pelts per year on Amazon tributaries, 1975-
1979, but just 184 in 1992 and none this year, says enforcement chief Jose
Leland Barroso, whose staff boards and inspects 1,300 boats a month.
FoA sent a rubber backbone to John Kennedy Jr., publisher of
the fashion magazine George, after he vetoed publication of the same antifur
ad, “How fur looks before the gassing, clubbing, and electrocution,” that
appeared in the October ANIMAL PEOPLE. “We have to wonder why
compassion for animals is too controversial for a magazine which features
cigarette ads, Cindy Crawford in male drag, and an article on Madonna as
president,” wrote FoA president Priscilla Feral. “While this backbone is
only made of rubber, we thought it would be better than none at all.”
U.S. fur farm production continues to drop to new lows,
according to new USDA statistics. The 457 U.S. mink farms still operating
produced 2.5 million pelts in 1994, and bred 708,300 females to produce
pelts for 1995. Only 47 farms reported raising foxes.
George and Bunty Clements, who in 1953 founded The FurBearers,
a.k.a. the Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing Animals,
have retired after 25 years of running the organization fulltime. Their successors
are Michelle Clausius, on the job for a year at the Vancouver office,
and Camilla Fox, who recently took over the California office.
The House Rabbit Society asks that letters objecting to the sale of
rabbit pelts be addressed to the Conner Prairie Museum, 13400 Allisonville
Road, Fishers, IN 46038-4499. Museum director of public affairs Brenda
Myers incongruously responded to an HRS letter of protest by stating that,
“The pelts we sell originate in Spain.” Asked Jacquie Lewis of HRS, “We
wonder whether that matters to the rabbits.”
