Category: Fur & Skin

Russia halts seal hunt

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2009:
MOSCOW, OTTAWA–Russian minister of natural resources Yury
Trutnyev on March 11, 2009 told the world that Russia has halted
hunting seals under one year old on the frozen White Sea.
“This bloody hunting is from now on banned in our country,
as in most developed countries,” Trutnyev told media.
Trutnyev described the ban as “an important measure to
preserve Russian biodiversity.” The recent White Sea quota of about
35,000 seals per year was about a tenth the size of recent Atlantic
Canadian sealing quotas, but amounted to a third of the White Sea
seal population. The White Sea seal herd has reportedly declined by
95% since it was first surveyed in 1928. However, the first herd
estimate, produced in the early years of the Communist era to assess
the potential for economic expolitation, may have been grossly
exaggerated.

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WSPA board role of Danish wildlife researcher Bjarne Clausen raises questions

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2008:
World Society for the Protection of Animals board president
Dominique Bellemare is not the only WSPA board member whose history
of associations with prominent defenders of the Canadian fur and
sealing industries has caused ANIMAL PEOPLE to ask questions. Board
member Bjarne Clausen, a Danish biologist, spoke in 1981–the same
year that WSPA was founded–as part of the Northwest Territories
Department of Renewable Resources’ “Fish, Fur, & Game for the
Future” program.
Like Bellemare, Clausen appears to have no public record of
speaking or writing against the fur trade, either in Canada or
Greenland, a Danish protectorate where Clausen formerly did studies
of otters and other wild furbearing mammals.

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BOOKS: Ivory Markets in the USA

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2008:

Ivory Markets in the USA
by Esmond Martin & Daniel Stiles
Save the Elephants (P.O. Box 54667, 00200 Nairobi, Kenya), 2008.
120 pages, paperback, produced in partnership with Care for the
Wild International. No price listed.

Ivory Markets in the USA follows Esmond Martin and Daniel
Stiles’ earlier comprehensive reports on the ivory traffic in Africa,
southern and eastern Asia, and Europe. Martin, a geographer, and
Stiles, an anthropologist, in each report thoroughly inventory and
document all the ivory items they find offered for sale in examples
of every type of retail outlet that might stock ivory. Dominoes,
piano keys, and guitar picks attract their notice, as well as the
ornate carvings that are most often associated with antique and
therefore legal uses of ivory.

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Cat-skinning in Switzerland

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2008:
GENEVA–How many cats are skinned for fur in Switzerland?
Probably not nearly as many as the thousands or even tens of
thousands recently alleged to media by Tomi Tomek, founder of the
Swiss group SOS Chats, and Patricia Dolciani, president of the
French Society for the Protection of Animals in Thonon-les-Bains,
near the Swiss border–but enough to shock Europe as the trade comes
to light.
“As far as we are aware, only a couple of dozen cat furs are
produced annually in Switzerland,” Swiss Federal Veterinary Office
spokesperson Marcel Falk told Tony Paterson of the London Independent
in April 2008.

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Canada takes seal product bans to WTO Canadian trade minister will not oppose dog & cat fur imports to avoid precedent

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2007:
GENEVA–Defying the court of world
opinion, Canadian international trade minister
David Emerson on September 26, 2007 appealed to
the World Trade Organiza-tion to try to stop
Belgium and the Netherlands from banning Atlantic
Canadian seal products.
Emerson asked the WTO to hold “formal
consultations” with the European Union on the
Belgian and Dutch actions, “which is the first
step in the organization’s dispute settlement
process,” explained James Keller of Canadian
Press.
Belgium banned seal product imports in
January 2007, allowing an exemption for Inuits
in the Far North who hunt seals by traditional
methods. The Netherlands published a similar ban
in July 2007, taking effect in September.
Both bans are symbolic, since neither
nation has recently imported seal products, but
Emerson “said Canada is worried the bans will
encourage other countries that have expressed
similar concerns, including Austria, Germany,
and Italy, to follow with their own bans,”
wrote Keller.
Dutch agriculture minister Gerda Verburg
responded that the Dutch law “fits within the
rules established by the WTO.”
European Union trade commissioner Peter
Mandelson said in a written statement that he is
“naturally disappointed by this move” on the part
of the Canadian government. Mandelson “said the
EU would defend its member states before the WTO,
while continuing to study whether a EU-wide ban
on seal products is justified,” summarized
Keller.

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Muschel photo caption

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2007:
“As there has been no funding from leading animal rights
groups for a sustained anti-fur campaign in the affluent
neighborhoods of New York City, I decided to put up an anti-fur
mural,” wrote New York City resident Irene Muschel. The mural went
up in March 2007, “recognizing,” Muschel said, “that the best time
for anti-fur murals is when the weather is warmer, so people can
learn before they buy fur.”

Rabbit fur farming exposed

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:

The Portuguese animal rights group ANIMAL on December 9,
2006 unveiled a nine-minute video showing conditions in the
Portuguese rabbit fur farming industry.
“The film finishes showing the rabbits in the skinning
factory, tied upside down in a line before being skinned alive,”
said ANIMAL president Miguel Moutinho. Live skinning, Moutinho
said, follows “slaughter without proper stunning, with the rabbits
still conscious when having their throats slit.

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HSUS catches major retailers selling dog fur

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2007:
NEW YORK CITY–The Macy’s fashion store chain on December 22,
2006 withdrew from sale two styles of Sean John brand hooded jackets,
after mass spectrometry testing commissioned by the Humane Society of
the U.S. revealed that “imitation rabbit fur” and “faux fur” collars
were made from the fur of tanuki dogs, members of the domestic dog
family with raccoon-like markings, native to China and Korea.
“A Sean John snorkel jacket on sale for $237.99 at Macys.com
specifically identified the materials used as ‘Nylon/faux fur/goose
down,'” HSUS said. “When investigators purchased the coat, they
found that the labels read ‘Made in China’ and ‘genuine raccoon fur.'”

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Fur trim trade exploits ambiguous attitudes

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2006:
LONDON–Fashion superstar Kate Moss
designs garments for Topshop, a firm with a
policy against using fur–but as a model, the
role that propelled her to fame, Moss wears furs
for Burberry. Her paradoxical alignments reflect
the ambiuity of a fashion market in which
traditional highpriced fur coats have been “out”
for nearly 20 years, yet cheap imported fur trim
is selling as never before.
The London Independent in a series of
November and early December 2006 features
reported “a growing backlash against soaring
sales of fur,” which has yet to show much sign
of reversing the fur trim boom.
British fur sales are up 30% in two
years, The Independent said, “with £41 million
of new fur products,” about 1,000 tons’ worth,
“imported every year into a U.K. market now worth
an estimated £500 million.”

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