FUR/LEATHER

Most humans believe that leather and fur are for them to be protected, for survival. But they all think wrong. Using another’s animal skin is not longer a way of comfort, nor a necessity to survive, it is now a way of fashion. AND IT IS NOT THEIRS TO BEGIN WITH.

Leather

     Every year, the $1.5 billion U.S. leather industry tans approximately 100 million animal skins. Many animals from whom these skins are taken suffer all the horrors of factory farming, including extreme crowding and confinement, deprivation, unanesthetized castration, branding, tail-docking and de-horning, and cruel treatment during transport and slaughter.
     Most leather produced and sold in the United States is made from the skins of cattle and calves, but leather is also made from horses, sheep, lambs, goats, and pigs who are slaughtered for meat. Other species are hunted and killed specifically for their skins, including zebras, bison, water buffaloes, boars, deer, kangaroos, elephants, eels, sharks, dolphins, seals, walruses, frogs, crocodiles, lizards, and snakes. Thousands of endangered olive ridley sea turtles are captured and butchered illegally in Mexico solely for their skins.3 It is estimated that 25-30 percent of imported crocodile shoe leather and other wildlife items are made from endangered, illegally poached animals.4
     Other “exotic” animals, such as alligators, are “factory farmed” for their skins. Ranched alligators are kept in half-sunken tin-sided structures of cinder blocks on concrete slabs.5 As many as 600 young alligators may inhabit one building, which reeks of rancid meat, alligator waste, and stagnant water. Although alligators may naturally live 40 to 60 years, on farms they are usually butchered before their fourth birthday.
     The meat industry relies on skin sales to remain profitable. Buying leather directly contributes to factory farms and slaughterhouses since skin accounts for 55 percent of the byproduct value of cattle. Every time you choose to buy a leather jacket or leather shoes, you sentence an animal to a lifetime of suffering.

FUR

     Every year, a well organized fur industry spends millions of dollars to glamorize the fur coat and to hide the real price of fur which is pain, mutilation, torture and the inevitable death of millions of animals. Trappers in the United States alone are responsible for the death of more than 3 million animals a year. Animals including, raccoons, coyotes, bobcats, lynxes, opossums, beavers, otters and others. Nearly 3 million others are raised and slaughtered on fur farms.

All the information was obtain from:

PETA http://www.peta.org/

Free the animals http://www.freetheanimals.homestead.com/vivisection.html

What can you do

     There are many alternatives, including cotton, linen, rubber, ramie, canvas, and synthetics. Chlorenol (called Hydrolite by Avia and Durabuck by Nike), used in athletic and hiking shoes, is an exciting new material that’s perforated for breathability, will stretch around the foot with the same “give” as leather, provides good support, and is machine washable.

Visit htttp://www.furfreefriday.com/info.htm for Fur Industry Information.
Visit http://www.cowsarecool.com/altorders.asp for Shopping Guide to Nonleather Products.
Visit http://www.petatv.com/skins.html for Peta videos on Skins/Fur.