There has been a lot of great news about animal-based fur in the last couple of years. Not only did California just become the first state in the U.S. to ban the production and sale of fur, but it banned fur trapping. New York City is also considering a ban on fur sales. Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s made headlines this month when they announced they would no longer sell fur, adding their names to an ever-growing list of department stores, designers, and fashion houses—including Burberry, Calvin Klein, Georgio Armani, Gucci, Michael Kors, Prada, and Ralph Lauren—that have gone fur-free. In 2018, designer Donatella Versace, long known for her support of fur, said, “Fur? I am out of that. I don’t want to kill animals to make fashion. It doesn’t feel right.” Meanwhile, Norway and Slovakia recently said they are closing their fur farms, joining more than a dozen other countries in Europe that are banning fur farming and removing an important link in the supply chain. Even London Fashion Week ditched animal fur last year.
With all these advancements for fur-bearing animals, it’s tempting to think fur is finally dead. Sadly, it’s not, and activists can’t make the mistake of believing we’ve crossed the finish line—yet.
Just as many people are surprised to learn that whales are still being killed—they ask, “Didn’t that end in the eighties?”—activists have not put the final nail into fur’s coffin. After anti-fur campaigns in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, it looked like the industry was on its last breath, but fur made a comeback in the 1990s, buoyed by newly affluent buyers in China, South Korea, and Russia. By 2004, the global fur industry was worth $11.7 billion. Now, according to the International Fur Federation, the industry is valued at $40 billion. In the US, fur hit a 17-year high last year with $531 million in sales, up from $337 million in 2014.
So what happened? Part of the answer is that the fur industry found new markets for its cruel products. They began targeting the next generation of consumers with dyes to create a “modern” look. They hired new celebrity models. They looked beyond coats, gloves, and hats and used fur to adorn household items like furniture as well as shoes, keychains, pillows, scarves, and cat toys. And they created thinner fur garments that could be warn in warmer climates.
They also got into design schools, subsidizing the fur used by students—even in high school.
One of their biggest efforts has been the greenwashing of fur. As I discuss in Bleating Hearts, to divert consumer attention away from animal cruelty, the industry now touts fur as the ultimate “eco fashion,” such as in the Fur Council of Canada’s print ad featuring a model decked out in fur beneath the headline “Environmental Activist.” The ad copy explains that “wearing fur also helps protect nature, by supporting people who live on the land.” By “people” they mean trappers, who “depend on nature for their livelihoods.” Absent from the ad is any mention of the millions of “trash” animals trappers routinely kill while they are being “stewards of Earth.”
Indeed, the Council would have us believe that fur garments and accessories only come from animals caught in the wild. “In nature, each plant and animal species generally produces more offspring than the land can support to maturity,” reads the their website. “Like other species, we live by making use of part of this surplus that nature creates.” This is a preposterous lie, as far as the fur industry is concerned, because the majority of fur used in the trade is produced in farms from animals specifically bred for this purpose, and they know it. (Canada’s market for fur-farmed animals is three times the size of its wild-fur market.) A 2011 study on the environmental effects of mink-fur production found that it takes 11 animals to produce 1 kilogram of fur, and that the industry has a higher impact than other textiles in 17 of 18 measurement categories, including global warming and toxic emissions.
But fur’s carefully orchestrated comeback goes even deeper.
“The animal rights movement once before underestimated the fur industry and prematurely celebrated its supposed imminent demise,” says Ryan Shapiro, PhD, a longtime animal rights activist and now executive director of the transparency organization Property of the People. “Not only did this allow the industry to rebound, but the fur industry is just as committed to eliminating the animal rights movement as we are to ending it.” Ryan notes that documents he has obtained from one of his many Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the FBI reveal it was the resurgent fur industry in the late-1990s that secretly met with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to coordinate a federal assault on the animal rights movement. “It was the fur industry that pushed the DOJ and FBI to target the animal rights movement as a terrorist threat. It was the fur industry that gave the DOJ and FBI lists of activists and organizations it wanted neutralized. And it was ultimately this lobbying behind closed doors by the fur industry that gave rise to today’s Green Scare. The fur industry poses a double menace, both to animals and the movement for their liberation. We cannot rest until this vicious industry is entirely eradicated and consigned to the dustbin of history.”
Not everyone agrees that recent victories mean activists might shift their efforts to other campaigns.
Camilla Fox, executive director of Project Coyote in California, says she doesn’t believe the state’s new anti-fur legislation will slow down activists. “I think if anything success like this re-inspires people to stay engaged and continue pursuit of related issues—especially if they’re tapped into email alerts from organizations like ours to stay apprised of what other issues need attention.”
And Camille Labchuk, executive director of the animal law organization Animal Justice and one of Canada’s leading animal rights lawyers, told The Star that the recent fur-related bans in the U.S. and Europe have created an “unstoppable momentum” that she hopes will extend to her country, where activists continue to take action against outdoor clothing company Canada Goose for its use of down and coyote fur.
I hope they’re right. We’ve come a long way, and we do indeed have momentum, but I fear we could see a repeat of the nineties, with fur coming back strong, especially if the industry has the FBI and DOJ watching their back.
“Activists need to keep the pressure on fur to make sure that it stays away for good,” says animal rights advocate lauren Ornelas, who attended her first anti-fur protest in 1987. “We just need to keep reinforcing the fact that non-human animals are not ours to exploit.”
What You Can Do
Looking to get involved but don’t know where to begin? One place you can start is the Fur Free Alliance, an international coalition of animal protection organizations working to end the deprivation and cruelty suffered by fur-bearing animals both in wild trapping and industrial fur farming. They offer a number of fact sheets that you can use in your activism, which can be as simple as talking to family and friends about this issue, sharing information on social media, or signing petitions like this one, this one, or this one. You can write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Or you can participate in a Fur Free Friday protest on November 29 (do an online search for an event in your area). You can even speak directly to retailers that still sell fur and tell them you won’t shop there until they remove the cruelty from their racks. And you can contact fashion brands that use fur in their designs and tell them you won’t support them. Of course, you can also contact companies that have ditched fur and thank them! Whatever steps you take, large or small, each one makes a difference for the animals.