Fur: environmental and ethical aspects

I have never wanted to know about fur. I see that it comes from animals that to humans have no other economic purpose. I have never thought about it past not wanting to wear it because it so obviously comes from an animal that had to die for it. However, recently one of my very good friends has worn it extensively for fashion purposes.

When I mentioned my inability to ever decouple the thought of an animal dying with the sight of a fur accessory, she said she only wears vintage. She assumes that the label is correct. She assumes that it was done humanely. I would never assume this, but I am going to try my best to find out what practices are used, what extinctions are being caused, how common live skinning is. I will probably need to keep a bucket next to me for when I get sick, but fortunately I have experience with working closely with animals and even putting feral cats to sleep, so my skin has hardened quite a bit. I know about doing a job for a paycheck.

So far, besides the obvious PETA actions against fur, I also remember seeing a 60-Minutes type investigation on the fur used on Burlington Coat Factory's coats and how it came from dogs that were skinned alive. I don't see how I could ever be assured that fur was attained through humane practices, even if I was to be interested in buying it. Fur comes from far-away places like Russia and China, so I cannot casually drop in on the farm the way I feel I could do if I were buying meat from a farmer's market here and I wanted to visit the cattle.

I have never lived without synthetic materials like polyester fleece that could keep me warm without wearing fur. Because we live in an age of skepticism, my thoughts on the ethics of fur now must also take into account the environmental footprint. Polyester is plastic, made from oil. The clothing industry is very polluting. Maybe, in my investigation, I will find out that polyester producers deliberately funded smear campaigns against fur. Maybe fur is less harmful for the environment in the way that hunting for meat is less harmful than large-scale cattle ranches. Of course, there are still the tanning and other preparations of fur that I don't know about, so it may cause quite a bit of harm to the environment.

Maybe I will become the Temple Grandin of the fur trade, creating a set of best practices and a certification for businesses to stamp on their products and let buyers know where their fur is from and how it was harvested. My stomach is in knots at the thought of this. I don't want to research this topic, but I don't want to be ignorant about it, either.

I think the trouble will be finding unbiased information. I suppose if I read articles from the PETA types and from the fur trade businesses, I will be able to develop a middle ground story. I do not see myself being persuaded to ever buy fur, but at least I will be able to give fur fans information in case they want it and without the stomach-curling photos and videos. In the end, I think I will still prefer wool if I want a natural material. I may touch on down, which is another that I know will hurt to learn about.

There are more people in this world than the earth can sustain for a long period of time. The overarching issues is the fact that there are so many people and I think that if more people wanted to wear fur it would cause extinction for a lot of species.

I also came back to this issue after reading The Dodo's article about raccoon dogs being used for fur.