An 18-month undercover investigation exposed one of the dirtiest secrets of the global fur industry: the slaughter of companion animals—dogs and cats—for the fur trade. The investigation was a joint effort by The Humane Society of the United States/Humane Society International and Manfred Karremann, a German independent journalist.
Investigators estimate the annual death toll to be more than two million dogs and cats. And for what? For full-length and short coats and jackets. For fur-trimmed garments, hats, gloves, and decorative accessories. All made with the fur of dogs and cats, each killed to make products sold to unwary consumers.
Investigators witnessed firsthand the slaughter of domestic dogs and cats. Some of these animals were raised on breeding farms; others were rounded up as strays; and still others were probably stolen pets. Investigators also documented fur sales at European auction houses, which were attended by buyers from many countries, including the United States. The final destination of these products was always the same: the fur-buying public from around the world.
Of course millions of other animals are killed each year for vanity products, including mink, fox, raccoon, and more than a dozen other species. Consumers, designers, and retailers have been able to distance themselves from the slaughter that's part of the fabric of every fur garment by viewing "fur" animals as less capable of suffering than pets— and by falsely suggesting that "fur ranchers" employ husbandry methods that take good care of animals while they're alive and provide humane, painless death at the end. They even make the case that some animals—mink, for example—are a species less sympathetic and, so, less worthy of concern.
None of those arguments can be applied to dog and cat fur trade. Documentation from this investigation, including many hours of videotape and hundreds of photographs, shows that the methods of housing, transporting, and slaughtering dogs and cats may be unparalleled in their cruelty.
To read the Dog and Cat Protection Act of 2000, passed after Congress learned of The HSUS's investigation, download the PDF.
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