FUR!!!!!

baglady

i'm not sure if i am posting this in the right place so apologies in advance if i am not.

anywayyy watched this programme tonight on c4, called kill it, skin it, wear it, and it was a docu-type programme about the ethics of fur farms and trappers etc. It was so shocking to see some of the ways these animals are killed. One place they showed seemed pretty humane but was still disturbing. Then i did some more research and started to watch a PETA video about chinese fur farms and i had to turn it off it was mega disturbing, skinning animals alive and they are still alive even after their skin has been removed!! I don't really have a question or anything I just wanted to vent a bit. I would never ever wear fur now after watching that, not that i have fur already, but you just don;t know how much the animal suffered to make your coat/bag etc. ok thats all.

SunnyP

I watched the show it was a bit mad. I think each side showed serious good PR tactics I found the guy that was involved in the anti fur campaign to be extremely pushy and untactfull he wasn't able to talk about the issue of 'middle ground' just bombard the presenter with shocking images

baglady

Yeah definitely a lot of good PR, it was extreme at both ends...I dunno, the PETA video was so disturbing and graphic. *shudder*

WindSock

I think what bothers most people is that the animals are 'cute' animals. She wasn't as irked when the Beaver that 'looked like a giant rat' was drowned. I know the trapping was slightly more humane, but still.

seamus

You'll still eat the animal though right? So long as you don't wear it's fur, you're OK?

SunnyP

WindSock wrote: »

I think what bothers most people is that the animals are 'cute' animals. She wasn't as irked when the Beaver that 'looked like a giant rat' was drowned. I know the trapping was slightly more humane, but still.

When a beaver is trapped it can take them up to 20 minutes to drown not sure if thats more humane then an animal being trapped and then shot.

The industry needs to be regulated worldwide what they do in places like China ie skinning the still alive animal is not right where as the minc farm did seem like a efficient way of killing.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Gonna kick the chicken sandwiches too then?

baglady

well actually yeah, 3 years ago I stopped eating all meat! but it's really not about that, I mean fur is COMPLETELY unnecessary, like it's just a vanity thing, there is no genuine purpose for it other than fashion.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

fashion, and the thousands of people worldwide that making a living from it.

pH

baglady wrote: »

well actually yeah, 3 years ago I stopped eating all meat! but it's really not about that, I mean fur is COMPLETELY unnecessary, like it's just a vanity thing, there is no genuine purpose for it other than fashion.

Well you could equally argue that eating meat is completely unnecessary, in that millions of vegetarians live perfectly healthy lives, there is no good reason to eat meat except for the taste/pleasure it gives. It's also a very poor use of agricultural land in that it's far more efficient to provide basic nutrition from non-meat sources.

As for the Chinese fur farms, disgusting as it was the fact that some people somewhere in the world do it shouldn't tar everyone with the same brush. The main problem seemed to be that the fur industry has been slow to implement systems that would give consumers confidence in the source of their fur.

baglady

well yeah you could argue that, but I'm not going to, I was just simply tryin got vent the feelings I had after watching the programme that's all. Many people will argue that meat is a necessary and natural part of our diet. Once you get into that, you get into the degrees of it, like then should we all turn vegan etc.
It was just the fur I was venting about

nacho libre

i've heard about those chinese fur farms before, i've also read articles about where the Chinese throw live animals, such as goats, to a pack of starving lions and people gather around thinking it's a great spectacle to watch:mad:

GirlInterrupted

baglady wrote: »

well actually yeah, 3 years ago I stopped eating all meat! but it's really not about that, I mean fur is COMPLETELY unnecessary, like it's just a vanity thing, there is no genuine purpose for it other than fashion.

Not really totally unnecessary. There are certain parts of the world where fur is really the only option for warmth. Modern fabrics do a great job of replacing the use of fur for functional clothing in most cases, but in certain extreme northerly areas, fur is the only thing that can keep a human warm enough to survive.

I'm not guessing this, a Sami Indian took the time to explain the reasons for the traditional dress being so widely worn in the Artic circle... nothing beats the skins for warmth apparently.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

nacho libre wrote: »

i've heard about those chinese fur farms before, i've also read articles about where the Chinese throw live animals, such as goats, to a pack of starving lions and people gather around thinking it's a great spectacle to watch:mad:

right, because you've never watched a lion chasing an antelope on national geographic.

jeez, modern man.. we're just so civlised.

Kama

Heh this sounds like it was from the same production crowd as Kill It, Cook It, Eat It. The veal episode was great telly! Though I found it seemed to have an interesting approach, to whit, foreign veal bad, british veal good!

Curious as to whether the fur one had a similar take? As in,
nasty Chinese furfarms, good British ones?

I wish I had a chinchilla farm...

pH

Kama wrote: »

Curious as to whether the fur one had a similar take? As in,
nasty Chinese furfarms, good British ones?

I wish I had a chinchilla farm...

Fur farming has been banned in the Britain from Jan 1st 2003.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/524822.stm

Kama

Meh, hard to complain about Chinese fur farms if we won't do it ourselves in a humane manner, yet still buy the product. Typical.

InFront

I sometimes wonder what the requirements are for torture to become torture.

Firstly, I'm not in favour of skinning animals alive, terrorising mink, or chasing bunny rabbits with glee and a shotgun. Just want to get that out there.

But instead of trying to come to an understanding of humanity, and how (and why) we have evolved as we have, to enslave animals to us, instead some people insist on speaking in emotive ways of "torture", and "animal rights" and maybe even sometimes imply that if you want to skin an animal, you deserve the same yourself.

This kind of discourse is blatantly prejudiced between cuter and less cute organisms. Bunny Rabbits not Bacteria; Puppies, not Protozoa.
People who engage in this discussion know this and yet we never really seem to acknowledge it.
It seems that just because a horrible death happens to an obscene, squelching creature in as dark and damp and horrible a place as the small intestine by way of an anti-biotic off the shelf, or a bluebottle swotted on a window in a PETA office, that these examples are less deserving of discussion or analysis than an exotic creature killed in a far off sunny and beautiful land we've never been to.

Someone earlier mentioned economic factors. Why should some guy in China who earns less in a week than you spend on your lunch give up killing organisms when you blatantly refuse to stop using face-wash.... know how many millions of harmless bacteria could live happily on your face?!!

nacho libre

|-*SxyDubGrrl93*-| wrote: »

right, because you've never watched a lion chasing an antelope on national geographic.

jeez, modern man.. we're just so civlised.

Correct.
I do watch wildlife programmes but i turn it off as soon as it shows one animal hunting another as I don't derive pleasure from watching one animal killing another.

seamus

InFront wrote: »

But instead of trying to come to an understanding of humanity, and how (and why) we have evolved as we have, to enslave animals to us, instead some people insist on speaking in emotive ways of "torture", and "animal rights" and maybe even sometimes imply that if you want to skin an animal, you deserve the same yourself.

The idea of animal rights is a thorny one. There's an expectation that if you confer rights on a being (such as a human), then there's a level reciprocity. However, an animal can't understand this. You may decide that a lion has the right to life and therefore you don't shoot it. A hungry lion is unaware of this agreement and will eat you without a second thought.

This is somewhat backed up though by a second principle which urges us to provide protection for beings which are unable to defend themselves and which are incapable of understanding the rights which have been conferred upon them.

This is why we talk of human rights and quite separately we talk of children's rights. Children are incapable (for much of the time) of understanding the idea of reciprocity, therefore we confer some rights upon them which do not require reciprocity. So a parent is not allowed to strike their child, but we don't require that a child doesn't strike their parent.

This is where animal rights fit in, though the idea is sometimes lost on the more righteous members of the movement.

This kind of discourse is blatantly prejudiced between cuter and less cute organisms. Bunny Rabbits not Bacteria; Puppies, not Protozoa.
...
Someone earlier mentioned economic factors. Why should some guy in China who earns less in a week than you spend on your lunch give up killing organisms when you blatantly refuse to stop using face-wash.... know how many millions of harmless bacteria could live happily on your face?!!

This is a fairly simplistic view, however I will admit that many people will see it in this way, and that somehow killing rats is OK because they're ugly, whereas drowning a puppy is clearly the action of satan incarnate.

Largely however, people are driven by a desire to "cause no suffering", which is extended to lifeforms which have sufficiently evolved to have the ability to suffer.

In physical terms, one would require a nervous system of sorts to "suffer", but without actually being able to talk to an animal, it's impossible to tell what degree of a nervous system is required in order to suffer.

Nobody would argue that killing a bacterium causes it to suffer. We know conclusively that bacteria lack the ability to feel pain, emotional or physical. For all intents and purposes, they're chemical automatons which exhibit the properties of living creatures. Most people also accept that a dog does feel pain. Not only because we can see that it possesses a nervous system which would allow it to, but because we can see a pain response. But what about a fish, or a nematode? It's a greyer area - they sometimes display responses similar to those that feeling pain would do, but science has shown that some species lack the kind of nervous system which would be required to feel pain.

It's a philosophical debate more than anything. There's a fair argument that all living things are nothing more than chemical automatons. Which reduces the "feeling" of pain to nothing more than an inert chemical/electrical process. Most people accept that in the interest of practicalities (which philosophy is often unable to address), we must draw a line somewhere, and for most that line appears where the living creature possesses a nervous system which is capable of transmitting pain.

This is why it's OK to kill a fly or billions of bacteria, but it's not OK to kill a dog.

carlybabe1

Both flies and bacteria can spread disease, ditto rats, and while in most other countries so can dogs (rabies) I reckon a lot of the shock factor (for me anyway) is how anyone can forcibly subject ANY animal to that amount of pain, listen to its screams of agony and not only sleep at night, but not turn a hair. I personally think that anyone who can feel the smallest amount of compassion would be at the very least disturbed.

ChocolateSauce

For me there are two issues regarding inflicting suffering on animals. One, which has already been addressed in other posts, is that it isn't right to make animals suffer unnescessarily. Provided it is slaughtered in a kind and efficient manner, I don't have a problem with meat.

The second issue is what it does to, and says about the people who do it. Lets ignore for a moment for the animal's feelings; What kind of person would it take to inflict incredible suffering on another being? Even something as lowly as a fish can feel some degree of pain, but since most of the debate revolves around mammals I'll stick to them.

I for one couldn't skin a mammal alive. The shrieks of pain, the desperate attempt to escape...it is not at all disimilar to what we'd do if we were being skinned alive. Science has shown us that we share over 90% of our DNA with all mammals, so it is a reasonable approxamation to say we can feel at least 90% of what they feel and vise-versa. Indeed, it seems that the thing we can grasp that they can't is why we're in pain. If we're being skinned alive, we know it's because the skinner is a sadist or an executioner, where as a lower mammal just doesn't understand.

Is it healthy to have a society where it's okay to have people in it who are allowed to do this to animals? No, I think it poisons society, even if only by a very small measure. Animal rights isn't just about protecting animals, it's about protecting the morality of humans. We can't allow some of our number to get away with inflicting extreme cruelty on anything.

After all, they say you can judge how good a person is not by how they treat their equals, but by how they treat their lessers.

seahorse

baglady wrote: »

It was just the fur I was venting about

That's exactly the problem to my mind baglady; most of the people who "vent" about fur do so while wearing the hides of animals on their backs and feet while the flesh of other animals is digesting in their stomachs. They're a shower of hypocrites as far as I'm concerned and are welcome to fukoff.

seahorse

ChocolateSauce wrote: »

Provided it is slaughtered in a kind and efficient manner, I don't have a problem with meat.

The animals that are farmed for their flesh live in a manner that's anything but kind ChocolateSauce (unless we're talking about free range chickens that drop dead of old age before they're marketed, and I don’t think there are too many of those on the shelves in Tescos)

I think that to give an animal a life of outright cruelty and then kill it in a "kind an efficient manner" is just snake-oil for the conscience, to be honest. That is not to say that I think they should die in pain; what I'm saying is that they live in pain and a quick death does not take that away.

I don’t own a fur coat, but I wouldn’t rule out buying one, and if I ever get to the place in my mind where I refuse to wear fur it'll be the same day I adopt an entirely vegan diet and stop wearing leather.

ChocolateSauce

seahorse wrote: »

The animals that are farmed for their flesh live in a manner that's anything but kind ChocolateSauce (unless we're talking about free range chickens that drop dead of old age before they're marketed, and I don’t think there are too many of those on the shelves in Tescos)

I think that to give an animal a life of outright cruelty and then kill it in a "kind an efficient manner" is just snake-oil for the conscience, to be honest. That is not to say that I think they should die in pain; what I'm saying is that they live in pain and a quick death does not take that away.

I don’t own a fur coat, but I wouldn’t rule out buying one, and if I ever get to the place in my mind where I refuse to wear fur it'll be the same day I adopt an entirely vegan diet and stop wearing leather.

Most animals do not live a life of cruelty. Go to any farm and you'll see happy cows munching away. They're dumb animals-they don't want anything more than what they have. I hardly think that being safe, well-fed and looked after is bad treatment. And when they're killed properly, they suffer very little.

Yes, there are exceptions, like battery hens and farms which do not obey the law, but I don not condone those, and I always buy free-range eggs.

I can't say I know too much about farming for fur or leather, so I won't pronounce on those issues; I was talking purely about the food we eat.

seahorse

ChocolateSauce wrote: »

Most animals do not live a life of cruelty. Go to any farm and you'll see happy cows munching away.

Well we'll have to agree to disagree on that ChocolateSauce; there's no way when I look at the rows and rows of meat on supermarket shelves and consider how many thousands of tons of meat are being sold worldwide at any given time that the majority of that was sourced from happy farm-dwelling animals.

Did you never hear about the scandals over cows being pumped full of harmful steroids in order to make them bulk up and produce more meat? You'd probably come across that with a bit of googling; you should probably do a bit of research into how these animals are treated before they're killed. (I think I may do so myself; though it'll probably put me off my dinner)

I remember watching a horrible documentary on TV that showed how sheep and cows were lined up and killed one after another with a metal bolt through the head. The animals nearing the top of the line would begin to kick out and squeal in panic because they could see something awful was happening to the animals at the top of the line and that they were headed in that direction themselves. It was just sickening; really really horrible.

Even if they were killed in the most humane way possible, I dont think it's reasonable to say any living thing that's being farmed for its flesh is "safe".

kowloon

If you're shooting, trapping or farming an animal for meat letting the Fur/Hide go unused is a terrbile waste.
I don't, however, agree with the breeding of animals purely for fur when the meat goes unused.

Zulu

I tend to agree a little with Kowloon tbh; I've no problem with fur, but I do feel it's a little wasteful to leave the carcass go to waste.

What people need to acknowledge is the farmed animals aren't treated "humanly". Perhaps they are in Ireland; perhaps they are in Europe; perhaps they are in the western hemisphere, but so long as people strive to pay 50c less for a chicken breast, someone, somewhere will flaunt any rule and stoop to any level to make a quick buck.
While we farm animals, the only thing we can be assured of is that simple fact.

So on the back of that, I've decided that the rare striploin stake I had last night, in the restaurant I drove home from on leather seats, was just too juicy and comfortable to turn down.

Long may farming continue.

taibhse

Fur farming is inherently cruel and needless. I challenge anyone who has a fur coat or is thinking of buying one to watch an animal being skinned alive. And for what?
So some model can sashay down a catwalk with a dead animal draped around her? Why shouldn't these animals have a right to live when they are in fact sentient beings.
If you wouldn't wear your cat or dog then why wear fur?
And for the record yes I am actually a vegan so I would apply the same standard to the meat industry(check out sig) also needless vivisection, circuses etc

It wasn't me!

I don't have a problem with fur. We kill animals for food and breed them for renewable resources like milk, so why not make more use of the animal? Not all animals are skinned alive (never saw the point myself, it's just not practical. Tricky enough to do well without struggling) and hides make some of the finest, best enduring and warmest clothes we have (Think motorcycle jackets and fur lined hoods and such). At some point I'd like to try tanning hides, because it's a skill that's greatly in decline, and it's a source of excellent fabric, that allows me to make better use of the animals I harvest for food.

Ultimately, which is better, that someone shoots a deer, kills it humanely and processes it, getting a hundred pounds of meat far better quality than is generally available on supermarket shelves and even restaurant kitchens, and then tans the hide and makes doeskin gloves that keep the person warm through a winter, or that the skin is ignored? Bear in mind that the deer absolutely must be killed anyway to have any chance of preserving our wilderness, as their vast and quickly expanding numbers are a genuine threat to Irish ecosystems.

Zulu

can't argue with that really

taibhse

We kill animals for food and breed them for renewable resources like milk, so why not make more use of the animal?

you are talking bollox in fairness. have you any idea how the fur industry works? Fur comes from mink, chinchillas, foxes, bears and cats and dogs in China. Do we eat any of those animals? these animals are bred strictly to be killed for their fur and the carcass is disposed of.

Not all animals are skinned alive

you're right there, on irish fur farms they are electrocuted alive, fully conscious with probes inserted into the anus and vagina. Much better.

Bear in mind that the deer absolutely must be killed anyway to have any chance of preserving our wilderness

From someone who advocates deer hunting I'm sure you cant sleep at night, tossing and turning, just thinking about the poor little flowers that the deer are munching on.

as their vast and quickly expanding numbers are a genuine threat to Irish ecosystems.

Id probably say the same things about humans

It wasn't me!

Some of those animals are eaten in certain countries. However, the point is, I was talking about the fur of food animals, such as deer and rabbits.

Electrocution is pretty humane in all fairness, out like a light.

Don't patronise me, thank you. Deer do enormous damage to forestry, as they feed particularly on saplings, destroying the future trees of the forest.

In answer to the last part, it doesn't matter a damn what you think about humans frankly. I have plenty of reservations about humanity, but the fact is, humanity will enforce its precedence in this world. The fact is we introduced creatures like sika deer, and now we're racing (and losing) to catch up with the mistakes of our forebears. NPWS estimates put deer numbers in Wicklow alone at about 60,000 currently. To maintain this number, we'd have to cull 20-25% of them each year, depending on herd size and makeup. Last year, about 5,000 were culled in Wicklow, so you can see we're just not doing enough. However, it's past saturation point as is, damage is being done and forestry and every other creature that depends on forestry is suffering as a result. If we want to avert a disaster for our environment, we need to do some killing, and if promoting venison and buck/doeskin as viable products helps that, it's a bloody good idea.

Those who suggest we leave the cutesy little animals alone tend to have no long-sighted plan at all. You've demonstrated it here as clear as day. Those activists looking for animal rights are in many cases the same ones who released mink from farms here (cheers for that, Irish wildfowl have a card in the post) and bleat about the poor deer whenever someone mans up, does the country a favour and shoots one, and I have no time for such shortsighted and blind people.

taibhse

Maybe we should start culling humans then, at least more eco system would be preserved if you really want to get serious on the matter.

Humans are the biggest offenders on this planet and its because of attitudes like yours. I'm a human so I'll kill want I want control eco systems how I want because whose going to stop me, I'm human after all.

GirlInterrupted

taibhse wrote: »

Maybe we should start culling humans then, at least more eco system would be preserved if you really want to get serious on the matter.

Humans are the biggest offenders on this planet and its because of attitudes like yours. I'm a human so I'll kill want I want control eco systems how I want because whose going to stop me, I'm human after all.

Hardly a realistic argument is it? The point is humans are here, and at the top of the food chain. To preserve the environment for further generations of both people and animals, culling is a fact of life. There's no point in having no tolerance for human interference with ecosystems, but deciding its ok if its animals doing the damage, its a very simplistic way of looking at it.

It makes no sense to me to argue for the rights of animals at the expense of humanity. Letting deer destroy the forests may help the deer population at the moment, but ultimately it would be their downfall as a species, and all living things - including humans - would be affected by the trickle down effect.

I don't agree with the breeding of animals for fur only, but I do agree with using as much of an animal as possible when its killed for food, and animals will always be killed for food.

It wasn't me!

taibhse wrote: »

Maybe we should start culling humans then, at least more eco system would be preserved if you really want to get serious on the matter.

Humans are the biggest offenders on this planet and its because of attitudes like yours. I'm a human so I'll kill want I want control eco systems how I want because whose going to stop me, I'm human after all.

There is an enormous political drive for people to limit the damage they cause to the environment. Humanity is never not going to leave a mark, but we can limit the damage we do. One way or the other, it's not humans eating their way through forestry, damaging crops and the like, it's wildlife, whose populations need to be controlled to limit their effect.

Frankly, it's attitudes like mine, from people who'll try and fix a problem rather than burying their heads in the sand and feeling sorry for themselves and everything else that'll suffer for their negligence, that just might help the world, rather than the aforementioned whiners who do nothing but doom it through their lack of resolve. Want to preserve the forestry and wild flora of this island for the next generation? Kill some sika deer. Don't have the stomach for it? Do everyone else a favour and don't badmouth those who do.

sorella

We were shocked to learn of all the fur farms here in Donegal, and to read of the way these animals are kept and killed.

We need to set our own house in order; fur is not needed to wear here.

Hugh_C

ChocolateSauce wrote: »

Science has shown us that we share over 90% of our DNA with all mammals, so it is a reasonable approxamation to say we can feel at least 90% of what they feel and vise-versa.

nope, that doesn't follow at all. But that's beside the point.

I've watched the PETA stuff and was horrified by the skinned animals that were still alive. That's just monstrous. There's no need for that kind of cruelty, just kill the poor beast before you skin it. By whatever means, put it out of its misery.

Censorsh!t

Wearing fur is like wearing leather pretty much, in some cases, especially indian leather, where in some places the cows are solely killed for the leather.