FUR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1994:

Encouraged by the reopening of
Bloomingdale’s Maximilian fur salon in
New York on November 29, the fur trade
still claims sales are up after a five-year
slump, projecting 1993 retail receipts of
$1.2 billion––but once again hard numbers
tell a different story. As of Christmas,
advertised retail fur prices were still plung-
ing to new lows in inflation-adjusted dollars.
Mink coats, furs priced at $5,000 or more,
and the overall average fur price were all
down 25% from the previous record lows
reached in 1992, The total volume of fur
advertising was down 17%, despite promi-
nent early fall cooperative promotional
efforts. Further indications of falling
demand include the 1993 mink and fox pro-
duction figures published in Fur Age

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Christmas poll

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1994:

A nationwide Los
Angeles Times poll of 1,612
adults, taken December 4-7 and
published Christmas Day, found
that 54% of Americans oppose
sport hunting, including 65% of
women, 41% of men, and 60%
of people ages 18-29; 50%
object to wearing fur, including
58% of women, 40% of men,
and 57% of people ages 18-29;
and 47% agreed with the state-
ment that, “Animals are just
like humans in all important
ways,” including 52% of women
and 61% of people ages 18-29.

FURRIERS STRUGGLING

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1993:

If fur is making a comeback, it isn’t evident in the retail price index kept by
ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton since 1988. The volume of fur merchandise
advertised in the greater New York metropolitan area as of Fur Free Friday 1993 was identi-
cal to 1992, as was the average price, excluding sable. The advertised volume of sable,
the highest-priced fur, was up fivefold, with the average price up from $25,000 to
$38,750––but the advertised volume of mink held steady, while the average mink price was
down 30%. “They’re in a steep slump and swinging for home runs to compensate,” Clifton
said. “Mink is traditionally 80% of their trade, but they aren’t picking up new customers
even at steep discounts, so they’re trying to buy sable low from the cash-strapped former
Soviet republics and sell it high to the handful of customers they’ve kept.” It’s too early to
project sales figures for the whole winter, Clifton continued, with the Christmas and
Valentine’s Day sales periods still ahead, “but so far there’s no sign that increased fur adver-
tising expenditures are significantly paying off. They’re just spending more money to stay
where they are.” Just before the fall fur ad blitz began, Evans Inc., accounting for roughly
10% of U.S. retail fur sales, reported a second-quarter drop of 7.4% in same-store sales as
compared to last year.

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FUR IS STILL DEAD: Industry numbers confirm collapse, despite claims

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1993:

Daniel A, the successor to the bankrupt Antonovich fur chain, itself declared bank-
ruptcy in early October. The high-profile collapse, on the heels of a previous collapse, under-scored the continuing crash of the fur trade. Despite the Fur Information Council of America claim that retail fur sales rose to $1.1 billion last year, ending a four-year decline, other data newly released by the fur trade itself confirms the ANIMAL PEOPLE projection based on gar-ment and pelt prices that sales actually fell to between $648 and $750 million. Evans Inc., annu-ally accounting for about 10% of U.S. fur sales, sold $107 million worth of goods––but trim items with minimal fur content accounted for $30.4 million of it. The fur trade claimed mink pelt prices were up 30%, but Wisconsin, accounting for nearly 25% of U.S. mink production, recorded a 16% drop in sales and a 13% drop in revenue, indicating only a marginal price rise. The number of U.S. fur garment wholesalers also fell, from 2,200 at the start of 1992 to just 1,500 going into this winter. Finally, a study of the fur trade done by Southwick Associates for the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies confirms the accuracy of the ANI-MAL PEOPLE model of fur trade economics, coming within 11% of the ANIMAL PEOPLE projections in 17 of 18 major categories of information. The only wider variance is in the esti-mates of retail jobs produced: Southwick found four times as many by counting all employees of retailers who sell fur, instead of counting only those who actually work in fur sales. The ANI-MAL PEOPLE model was developed in early1988 by editor Merritt Clifton, under contract with the Humane Society of the U.S., and has been used to produce yearly estimates of fur trade eco-nomic data ever since. The Southwick Associates model is based on 1990 statistics obtained directly from the fur trade and state wildlife departments.

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FUR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1993:

ARE FUR SALES UP OR DOWN?
U.S. retail fur sales rose to $1.1
billion in 1992, ending a four-year slump
during which sales fell from $1.8 billion to
just $1 billion––says the Fur Information
Council of America.
But the FICA figures, published
in the September 21 Wall Street Journal,
are open to question––not least because it’s
hard to boost sales with markedly fewer
sales outlets. Nearly half the fur retail out-
lets of five years ago are now out of the fur
business. Among them are 34 of the 50 out-
lets formerly owned by Evans Inc., which
controlled 10% of the U.S. retail fur trade;
20 of the 49 Jindo and Fur Vault franchises;
and the entire Furrari and Antonovich
chains, both of which went bankrupt.

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ANIMAL HEALTH

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1993:

IN THE VETERINARY CLINIC
Despite concerns about bites and animal-transmitted
disease, veterinary staff are as often hurt on the job by ordi-
nary slips, trips, falls, and lifting injuries, according to sta-
tistics supplied to ANIMAL PEOPLE by the American
Veterinary Medical Association Professional Liability Insurance
Trust. From 1988 through 1992, dog bites accounted for 16.3%
of claims, cat bites for 13.8%, kicks by horses and cattle for
5.2%, and all other injuries done by animals combined amounted
to just 4.1%––but slips, trips, and falls came to 17.2%, while
lifting totaled 16.2%. Three-fourths of the lifting injuries
involved lifting “small” animals, whose weight and ability to
struggle were probably underestimated by the injured. Average
costs per claim were $2,808 for animal-related lifting injuries;
$6,253 for other lifting injuries; $6,212 for slips, trips, and falls;
$4,174 for horse and cow-kicks; $1,527 for dog bites; and $678
for cat bites. Job safety statistics have apparently never been
compiled for animal control officers and shelter workers, but
similar ratios may apply.

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If Imelda Marcos goes cruelty-free, Frank Zigrang might get rich; NON-LEATHER SHOE KING SHOWS HUMANE MERCHANTS HOW

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1993:

DAKOTA CITY, Iowa––”I’ve learned everything the hard way,” Frank
Zigrang states, “and I’m still learning from my mistakes.”
Zigrang founded his mail-order non-leather shoe firm, Heartland Products
in 1986, with no experience in either direct-mail sales or the shoe business. But in
six months as a vegetarian, Zigrang had discovered a vacant market niche, and as a
career businessman, he didn’t waste time moving to fill it. Heartland now boasts a
customer list of 30,000, annual sales of $100,000, and turns a modest profit.
“I’m making a living, anyway,” Zigrang admits. “It maybe isn’t much of
a living by some people’s standards, but I still have other business interests,”
including a share in the family grain farm run by his older brother.
Zigrang has become legendary in the animal protection community
through his frequent sales exhibits at half a dozen regional conferences per year.
But that’s not the key to his success. “I just do that for visibility,” he explains. “To
sell anything, you have to stay visible.” The keys, he emphasizes, “are the old
business stand-bys. That’s price, convenience, and quality. If you can’t sell some-
thing for less than the store at the mall, you sell something better than they have
down at the mall, or something they don’t stock, and you make it more convenient
for your customers to place an order with you than to drive down to the mall. You
stay in touch with your customers. That’s how you get repeat orders. You stock
what they want.”

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FUR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1993:

“The American Veterinary
Medical Association considers the steel-
jaw leghold trap to be inhumane,” accord-
ing to a single-sentence policy statement
issued in mid-July, culminating years of lob-
bying by George Clements of the
Association for the Protection of Fur-Bearing
Animals. The AVMA had long been reluc-
tant to oppose trapping because many mem-
bers wish to avoid being associated with ani-
mal rights militancy. At that, the words
“steel-jaw” were reportedly added under
pressure from the National Trappers
Association, which feared that the statement
might otherwise be taken to include padded
leghold traps and foot snares. This could
have been devastating to the fur industry
push to get padded leghold traps, snares,

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FUR

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1993:

A frequent target of animal
rights protesters for keeping marine mam-
mals in captivity, Marine World/Africa
USA is also under fire from the California
Fur Industry Inc. for describing the near-
annihilation of wild serval cats by the fur
trade during educational presentations at the
amusement park’s Wildlife Theatre.
“Fur trade officials are now
receiving Indian Affairs funds, which
should be going to First Nations,” the
Aboriginal Trappers Federation of Canada
charged in a public statement at the recent
North American Fur and Fashion Exposition
in Montreal. The statement referred to the
allocation of funds from Indian and Northern
Affairs Canada to the Wildfur Council of
North America, a pro-trapping group with
little Native American representation.

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