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Fur
Entails Savagery #1
of 4
J. B. Suconik
The incoherent “facts on wearing furs,” by
accountant Joan partisan, seems to be a self refuting
jumble. Which Joan can we believe? The Joan who defines
herself as an abominable, bloodthirsty, and hard hearted
creature, capable of any torture to animals. Or the Joan who
wishes that an animal did not have to suffer and die so that
she could have a fur coat. Partisans* also have a wish. They
wish that as many as forty animals and their orphaned babies
did not have to suffer and die so that Joan could indulge
and humor herself.
Is
it true that her fur coat is absolutely “necessary”?
‘that state of affairs can be other than it is. According
to an article by Greta Nilsson in the book “Facts about
Furs,” the synthetic product is in many ways
superior to fur. It impervious to moths, less costly, easier
to maintain, and is as warm or warmer than fur. Evidence of
the superior warmth and wind resistance of synthetic
materials was the use by expeditions to Antarctica and Mt.
Everest in the 1950s, of nylon furleen clothing in
preference to fur garments.
Down-filled, and padded nylon parkas were, and
may still be, the lightest and most waterproof protection
available for frigid temperatures. However down plucking is
cruel, thus down is an unacceptable product.
‘The feet,” says Dr. Loretta Smith, “are
the last area of the body to get your circulating blood
supply.” Joan did not say that she wears fur-lined mukluks
at “20 degrees below zero,”
so we
can presume that she wore shoes and protective boots, and
she felt like “the whole of me was in a sauna."
If animal fur is a necessity, should it not be
so at 20 degrees below zero for the coldest part of the
body, the lady’s feet? if that is the coldest part
of her body. This person’s demeanor betrays an
insensitivity to the suffering her conduct entails to her
fellow creatures, whom she has deprived of both fur coats
and life.
Fur Entails Savagery #
2
Mr. Joel of Cork furriers is “satisfied” with “the
morality of selling natural fur.” he claimed that the fake
furs made from synthetic-based products, entail more harm to
the environment than natural fur. Real people, he believes,
don’t wear fake fur.
Were
we to be conquered by a race of super beings from space who
took a fancy to our hides as wearing apparel, would Joel
acquiesce to the morality of commerce in human skin and
hair? Or would he, astute man that he is, strenuouslv object
and demonstrate against the fashionable use of human skin
and hair?
Interest
speaks all languages and acts all parts, but Joel the
ecologist is also in error.
It is a little known but ominous fact that animal husbandry
and fur farming are today a great source of pollution to our
good earth. Can anyone be justified in causing preventable
suffering and death to either man or beast and fouling the
collective nest?
“Real people don’t wear fake fur,” is meaningless
nonsense, in defense of the indefensible. It’s because
real people wear natural fur that real live animals-many
live animals-have suffered, and do suffer and die.
Fur
entails savagery #3
Anal
execution of a fox.
The fur industry advertisement in the newspaper
failed to deliver what it promised: talking truth.
Finding themselves unable to cope
with
charges that are difficult if not impossible to refute, the
Associated Fur Industries of Chicagoland attempted to show
that the animal advocates (Partisans) are guilty of
misconduct.
This
is a diversion that can be very effective in controversy
since it serves
to deflect attention from the main issue, and tends to gain
support for the accused party. With just a few well chosen,
emotion-laden words, a very humane and compassionate outlook
is characterized as “...an issue of individual
rights.” These are inappropriate but powerful symbols. It
is not the legal right to wear fur that is at issue. The issue
is
wrongfulness based on the cruelty, suffering, and death
entailed in the wearing of fur.
Intuit the truth! urges talk truth, don’t underestimate
the comfort and pleasure of a new fur coat. Is this sound
advice and truth that can be justified in light of the
relevant facts?
Fur coats consist of the skin and fur of animals which were
either raised or trapped and killed. Estimates have gone as
high as three animals caught and discarded to get the fourth
one the trapper finds suitable for market. When the steel
jaw trap snaps shut on an animal’s leg, the animal will
thrash about in pain, panic, and terror, sometimes breaking
teeth on the trap to no avail. And sometimes the victim will
succeed in achieving freedom after much struggle, by leaving
a foot in the trap. The majority of animals are trapped on
land, and eventually exhausted by their struggle, and lie
quietly without food or water until the trapper returns
perhaps several days later. If the animal has not died it
must be killed, which may be done by strangulation,
clubbing, or stomping. Animals that are trapped in water
invariably drown. Trapping
regulations that have not prevented the decimation of huge
animal populations to near extinction, are a tragic sham.
The fur farm
horror,
is another fur industry closet truth. An energetic animal
such as a fox or mink, suffers horribly in the tiny jail in
which it spends its life. Neurotic behavior and self
mutilation is common among “ranched” fur animals.
Summer brings another hell to “ranched” animals in
sultry areas. Those with thick fur cannot perspire, as can some
animals
without thick fur. Thus they are subject to heat stress and
lie suffering in their tiny cages. In temperate climes, the
onset of winter brings the animals to their final torture, a
violent death, probably by electrocution, for which a clamp
is applied to the mouth and an electrode inserted in the
anus. Some manage to escape their electrocution by dying
from protracted suffering. Some lose their tongues, which
have stuck frozen to the cage floor.
These are the verifiable facts, which don’t sell newspapers or fur
coats but haunt Partisans. These facts haunt Partisans because of man’s
cruelty to animals, and what people will do, and say out of
self-interest. Contrary to what the fur people would have us believe, a
fake fur coat takes less energy to produce than a real fur
coat.
According
to
G.
H. Smith, Resident Engineer, Scientific Research
Laboratory at Ford Motor Company, the Btu’s to produce
fake, trapped, and ranched furs are, respectively 120,300,
433,000 and 7,965,800! On a finite planet of limited
resources, the Btu factor-aside from the hellish
cruelty-should be ample justification for an end to the
bloody fur industry.
Fur
Entails Savagery # 44
Mv
critique of the fur mongers was predicated in part upon the
research and testimony of G. H. Smith, Resident Enginecr,
Scientific Research Laboratory, Ford Motor Company, and the
work of another engineer, William J. Sauber of the American
Institute of Astronautics, author of “The Fourth
Kingdom.”
The response of Bud partisan of the retail fur
industry seems to have been motivated by self-interest.
Interest exerts a strong influence upon the conduct of
people. They can become creatures of selective awareness,
seeing in a situation what they wish to see, while passing
over what they do not want to see. Thus an animal’s skin,
fur, and life becomes a "renewable resource,” like a
cabbage
or tree. And an industry that brutally raises,
traps, and skins sometimes alive millions of animals,
(303,087,965 world wide in 1977-78, is alleged to be one of
America’s strongest supporters of animal welfare and
ecology.
It’s
true as Bud claims, that people are often ignorant of the
facts before taking a stand. A
fact that Bud is either ignorant of, or has chosen
to ignore, is that we
can make fifteen fake fur coats with the resources
required to make one natural fur garment. for many people it
is still impossible to serve God and Mammon- “for where
your treasure Is, there will your heart be also.”
It’s
true as Bud asserts, that fake fur is not biodegradable. A
good warm cloth coat made from the wool of sheep humanely
shorn, is biodegradable, and is a benign alternative.
* Supporter, backer,
champion of the rights of animals.
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