Fur - how can anybody be comfortable with this?
 

A couple of nights ago the BBC screened a programme featuring Paul and Heather McCartney's campaign to ban the trade in dog and cat fur. It amazes me that such a campaign should even be necessary, but sadly the trade in fur is currently at an all-time high.

This horrific video shows animals being skinned alive at a Chinese fur farm. I couldn't watch it all in one sitting. It's one of the most dreadful things I've ever witnessed.
http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/videod...video=fur_farm

The TV programme showed extracts from another video in which a frightened but passive GSD (Alsation) was removed from a sack, struck across the face, tied to a fence and then skinned alive.

This cruelty has to stop.

China supplies more than half of the finished fur garments imported for sale in the United States. Even if a fur garment's label says it was made in a European country, the animals were probably raised and slaughtered elsewhere—possibly on an unregulated Chinese fur farm.

You can read more about the campaign here http://www.furisdead.com/feat-heathermills.asp

I can't help notice the word peta in the url. That alone makes me not believe a word said. When you look up the word hypocrite in the dictionary, you find peta :) 2/3s of all animals rescued by peta are put down. And yet, they actively protest humane societies for trying to find people to adopt abused or neglected pets. And when they can't find someone to adopt, they put them down.

I have not looked at the video nor will I. And only because it has peta in the url.

Seems peta often causes more problems then they help. Talk about fanatics. Of course fighting for animals is great, but how they go about it...

ronnie

I can't believe they use dogs and cats that is disgusting. I also did not look at the clip, can't stand stuff like that. Poor animals |cry|

Yeah throw another steak on the grill and walk over to it in your leather shoes.

One of the main reason that I'm a vegetarian is living on farms when I was young.

I do own some leather shoes, we live in an imperfect world, but have no great love of leather either.

The problem with Peta is their fanatical.

Fanatical and Hypocritical, Cleo

If I were King of the world I would round them all up and skin them...

I understand that many animals are treated badly in the fur trade but what about the animals used to make other products?

Some years ago I saw a TV programme about cats being served up in restaurants in China. The recipe called for the flesh to be of a certain consistency and texture which could only be achieved by plunging the live cat into boiling water, just for a few seconds, so that the fur came away with finger pressure.

The still alive cat was then taken into the kitchen for cooking.

I haven't got an issue with PETA - I don't know enough about them.

My sole purpose in posting was to draw attention to the appalling cruelty inflicted upon animals in China. That's the central issue - not PETA.

i believe the china people eat all, fom cats and dogs and snakes, i have seen everal programs about it on telly, i will not look at the vid.......

As my current girlfriend is Chinese, I have had some interesting insights into how china works and what chinese people have lived through.

Chinese people don't lose anything in making food. They have lived for many, many generations with little food, not enough food, and not regular enough supplies of food. So they eat more animals than we would consider (including dogs, cats, and about a million others you wouldn't even think of) and they tend to eat ALL of them.

There is no real rules against animal cruelity in China, so over many years techniques have been developed for the slaughter and processing of these animals that would not be up to our standards here.

Remember also that outside of the cities, many chinese still do not have things like fridges or ice boxes, so most of their food is "bought live" and killed at home, or killed at the market place where they buy it.

The life experience is totally different.

PETA is famous for shocking videos and revealing situations that would offend western (specifically American) eyes. They don't, however, propose any alternatives that are workable or attempt to make things better. They don't have a solution how to feed millions of chinese that would be without enough to eat, but they sure can protest and make a fuss.

If you are not bringing a solution to the table, protesting is just blowing hot air and making yourselves look important.

I don't condone what the people in these videos are doing, I don't think it is right, but I also don't think that it is representive of the entire chinese experience, no more than your local puppy mill is a good indication of how dogs are normally bred for commerical sale.

Alex

lobsters are cooked alive too and how you call those little things ...schrimps? a lobster does make a sound when it get boiled alive, a kind of high sound thing, ofcourse i dont agree with what they doing, but lobster or cat, both alive cooking but both food for people........i dont know for real what to think about this.

Watch the movie Powder where he touches the dying deer that the hunter just shot and then touches the hunter so that the hunter can feel what the dying deer is feeling.

I want to do something to help stop this cruelty. There is no justification for skinning a dog, or any other animal alive.

Perhaps I should send Lady Heather McCartney a link to this thread to give her some idea of the low regard in which PETA is held. She might do better to go it alone.

cats are cute, lobsters aren't.

To me, clubbing baby seals is abhorrent, eating lobster is not. It's really hard to draw a line - I guess it would depend on your circumstances. If my children were starving to death, would I cook a cat? Probably.

I don't like any type of animal abuse, the least we can do is treat them humanely.

Ponygirl

I don't wear fur and never will.
I do however find it a little unsettling that people's shock seems to be more about the slaughter of cute animals or ones that we consider pets, and not about the pain & suffering of all animals in the interest of fashion.
What makes a cat's suffering any more acute than that of any other fur bearing mammal?

i agree with you, only we talk here about different countries, we have enough food, china probably not, but an animal is an animal, lobster or cat, cow or pig, eskimos eat seals, they also kill seals for their skin, like we in holland kill cows and pigs, and rabbits and whatever we kill to eat and to make clothes off, for us cat is an pet, for china its food, again i dont know what to think about this

what he said. It's all cultural and relative. A century or so ago in the states and in Canada people didn't have ice boxes and what not. People still needed to eat and a lot of the time it was a fresh kill. We can assume that the animals were killed quickly before they were butchered.

When you are poor and starving you make do with what you have. That is something most Western societies agree on... they just have a hard time wrapping their heads around skinning something that's alive. Our societies tend to Humanize animals... we transpose our feelings on to them, we think of them as having human like characteristics... all that is fine.

In China and other Asian countries, a dog is a dog and can be eaten. They are very certain that the dog, cat, pig has no emotions or feelings and is put there for their consumption.

As per the fur trade... those who like fur don't care where it comes from. They care if it looks good on them...

bunky

mm what makes fur so different from leather? leather stuff is more sold then fur, and both involved animals killed for their skin, and not to mntion the crocodile skin, snake skin

I have no more of a moral problem with people eating cats, dogs or baby seals than I have with them eating cows and pigs, but no-one has ever gone hungry because he couldn't kill an animal in a horribly painful way.

Being at the top of the food chain gives us the power to do whatever we want to those creatures below us. They're all living beings with feelings, both emotional and physical. How we treat them is a measure of how evolved we are as humans.

Well said Lemmy

My Mother left my wife 2 full length Mink Coats. One Brown and one Black. Damn, she looks good in them :)

I don't like the killing of Cats, Dogs or any other domesticated animal. But I do like my leather coat, leather belts, leather boots, steaks and my favorite...cold lamb chop sandwiches :)

We have those pointy front teeth for a reason (I forget, what are they called :) ). And the reason isn't to chew celery.

Haven't eaten meat or fish in over twenty years and I'm very healthy and don't crave meat at all.

Leather is most often a product of an animal that is being slaughtered for its meat AND hide.

Fur is most often a product of animal being slaughtered for its hide. A cosmetic thing, not a survival thing.

But whether one chooses to consume, wear, or make a pet of any living being, it shouldn't be so fucking much to ask that those animals be given a little respect. I eat meat and I own leather goods, but I don't want the animals' lives to be full of pain and torture and I sure as hell don't want them skinned alive. I'm far from being a perfect human (I eat KFC on occasion), but I at least I have some level of understanding about our bond to the other furry fuckers wandering this planet.

Lemmy |thumb

Both of my daughters tried to stop eating meat. For both of them, it ended on Thanksgiving :)

Really, I wish Beef didn't taste so damn good. And I wish I could stop getting pepperoni on my pizza...I know it would be much healthier but, it's just too tasty and I am too weak :)

But, my hat's off to you Cleo for being able to do it. My only real problem is peta. They are just homeland terrorist's with flunkies to do the dirty work. Could you imagine if everyone did what peta wants them to do? They want all animals to run free. Imagine the cat population, the dog population...all running the streets making more and more babies.

And what about the number 2 person at peta? She has diabetes and uses drugs that were tested on animals. Her response when asked..."It's OK because she gets to stay alive to save more animals".

ehhh...I am getting way off track. peta is just one of those hot buttons with me. Years ago, I worked with an ex-employee of peta and even though he still believed in what they were doing, by telling me, he convinced me they were just a cult.

I really feel exactly the same way. None of my family hunts and I sleep in my woods the night before deer hunting season. I even fed the deer when there was too much snow for them to eat naturally. And, Jesus, we now have 6 dogs, 2 cats, 3 birds, a Salt Water Aquarium and now we rescued a Turtle that was living in the worst smelling Aquarium you would ever smell. That happened yesterday. The poor thing is 2 years old and found out yesterday that he could swim :(

I should also point this out in case I didn't make it clear: The aminals in the PETA video were almost certainly used as food, not just killed for skin. You may not agree with the methods (and I cannot argue) but considering how much cattle, chickens, pigs, and sheep we munch our way through here I don't think we have much of a leg to stand on telling them what to eat.

Alex

You're right Alex. A few years ago we had a Chinese Restaurant get closed down for what the health department called "unknown meat". It really didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the meat was.

With that being said, my father used to travel all over the world. He came home with the top piece of a Monkey Skull. He told me what they did and I didn't talk to him for almost a month. My father and 4 other guys sat at a table with a hole in the middle. The, still living, monkey was brought in and was put in the table from the bottom with his head in a vice like device. All the men had little mallets and had to hit the monkey in the head and remove the top part of the skull to eat the brains. Still today...I can't figure out how my father could do that. He has told me over and over that he had no idea what type of restaurant he was going to but still...get up and walk away for Christ's sake.

I dunno Jim... all that cheese? What're a few pepperoni gonna do? ;)

I wish I could say I've been a vegetarian for 20 years... but I'm just a bit too young for that. Personally, I believe more humans could be fed if we stopped giving our food to all the animals... but how do you convince someone who likes meat that we have molars for a reason, and those few incisors in our jaws were originally intended for opening fruit skins? Sounds crazy, doesn't it?

That aside, in some parts of the world the only thing you can grow is cattle, wich can thrive on wild grasses. Just say a blessing before you blow it's brains out... or whatever quick method of execution people do.

As for skinning alive? I'm gonna put my rose colored shades back on now, and pretend I didn't read that. :D

ha i am an meat lover too, now my daughter (11) got hit by girls in her classroom, who said killing animals is bad, so my daughter said, i will never eat something what is from an animal, first day: mom what do we eat....me: ahummm baked patatoes veggies , salade and chickenshit(my name for chicken soft cooked with mushroomsauce) oh she said , oke nice, i said you didnt wanna eat meat anymore, yeah well i start tomorrow that taste very good chickenshit. like jim, i like leather jackets and more, i like steaks, chicken, eggs alot same with the rest of my fam, now nobody mention the make up they use, which are test on little rabbits, or the medicine they take to get better which are test on animals, do you all check in a store when you buy make up if it is tested on animals? do you ask your doc if the medicine you take is tested on animals? what i do care of is, when you have an animal or pet whatever you name it, you take care of it, cat, chicken, cow, pig, lobster who cares, treath it like a child of yours, we cant controle every country, every country have their own survival rules for food and what they like...

From what I've read most primates, that is what we are, eat grubs, insects, fruits, and vegetables.

I don't like watching videos like that. I don't know if it's real cause I did not watch it, I don't need to. I have seen some sick things people do to animals but I have also seen people do the same to each other. I don't watch any of those videos. I eat meat, I don't want to see where it comes from and I do not want to be the one to kill it. I agree with UW and anything that is killed be killed in the quickest more painless manor. But this is a hard thing to do short of walking up behind something and putting a bullet through it's head. But I think it was the buddist who said something like, anything that flinches when you raise your hand to it knows pain, thus has a knoweldge of death. This gives that being a soul and should not be killed. I think that's correct, but I don't live by it. I'm a big hypocrate when it comes to eating and clothes.

Objectively arguing morality is simliar to arguing taste, which, contrary to popular opinion, cannot ever be won by either side.

The lifeforms on this planet arose through a process that is ruthless and heartless......evolution. Jim was hinting at the results of it when he commented on our incisors. I may agree or disagree with machiavelli, but his principles hold true regardless.

In probably less than 15 years or so we will have artificial meat and other animal products that taste exactly like the real thing but are grown in labs using nanotech, saving billions and billions of dollars in the process.

In a philosophy class I would agree with you. Outside the world of academia, not entirely. All the rules and conventions most of us live by, whether we agree with them or not, are based on moral values and without them society would fall apart.

Yes, "evolution" (up to a certain point) made the world what it is, but natural selection hasn't been a factor in the development of human societies for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. And this is exactly what sets us apart from animals; compassion and empathy, the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, or even have a concept of right and wrong (based on moral values). Knowing when to do the right thing. Or self-servingly act against that knowledge no matter who gets hurt.

Me, I'm really looking forward to a nice, juicy nano-burger. :D

"morality" is actually a societally placed construct that predetermines the likelyhood of this or that value that just so happens to be in vogue at any given time. Once we have a real AI, the merits of my argument will become much more apparent.
How will an artificial intelligence learn morals? and from whom? fanatical muslims? perhaps an odd skinhead or two? If democracy, then when do we start? It cannot be "moral" according to everyone, which means to some it will be immoral.

A quick perusal of this subject will quickly dispell any notions of human superiority over other animals. Even though we no longer kill mammoth, it certainly doesn't mean we lack the primitive impulses and desires of our ancestors. They have just become less pronounced to the casual observer.

http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homep...blications.htm

In evo psych topics like the "cinderella effect" are discussed. that is the statistical probability of harm a child will be either injured or killed by a stepparent, which is much greater than from a biological parent. Did you also know that women are most likely to cheat during ovulation? when her chances of becoming pregnant are far more likely. I could go on and on with examples, but this is supposed to be a porn forum so I'll shut up now.|loony|

We should stop eating vegetables too. Think about all of the killing of innocent bunny rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, etc, from all the farm equipment, each and every harvest. We should also wage a Jihad on Venus Flytraps, what's up with those?!

Even the Dalai Lama has eaten a steak. Buddhists realize that we will not all follow the path, so they teach us to be mindful, thankful, and to not be glutonous to such a point that more suffering would be caused than what is necessary. I don't think you or I are hypocrites for living normal western lives. We strive for a balance. Yes, we eat meat and drive cars, but we don't go out of our way to do harm and we acknowledge that some beings will die due to us living.

A Buddhist monk was once asked if it was bad karma for he and his fellow monks to bring in a cat to rid their monstary of mice. The monk responded, "That's the cat's karma. Not mine." ;)

I'm one of those people who doesn't distinguish between cat and cow. It's like you said - it's a cultural difference. One eats what one has available to them. I certainly wouldn't wrong anyone for eating what is available. One of my more twisted comments for whenever someone makes that age-old comment about not eating Chinese food because it could be someone's cat, is this: I don't care if it's their fucking grandmother, as long as it tastes like General Tso's chicken to me.

Useless, that is one of the reasons why I like Buddhists so much. It really is everyone for themselves, you are not shamed or discounted by the actions of others, nor are you somehow magically lifted by their goodness.

I have long since learned to be careful asking what I am eating when I am with mainland chinese friends. I have found that things like BBQ pork stomache and things like necks and tails aren't all that bad... mental prejudice is you know ahead of time.

Alex