Consumer Info: Investigation—What is that they're wearing?

1. It could be some of your best friends.

An eighteen-month-long undercover investigation has exposed one of the dirtiest little secrets of the global fur industry: the brutal and cruel 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 (HSUS/HSI) and Manfred Karremann, a German independent journalist.

Investigators estimate the annual death toll to be more than 2 million dogs and cats. And for what? For full-length and short coats and jackets. Fur-trimmed garments. Hats. Gloves. Decorative accessories. Even toy stuffed animals. All made with the fur of dogs and cats. Dogs and cats no different from our pets, cruelly killed to make products sold to unwary consumers who generally have no way to know what theyÕre buying.

Investigators followed the blood trail from the sources. They witnessed firsthand the slaughter of domestic dogs and cats, some of whom were raised on breeding farms, others who were rounded up as strays, and still others who were obviously pets and had probably been stolen. They documented fur sales at auction houses in Europe—sales attended by buyers from many countries, including the United States. Along the way they encountered killers, sellers, middlemen, and buyers. And where did the trail of death end? With the fur-buying public around the world, including the United States, Russia, and many European nations.

TRADE IN DOG PELTS is sometimes an outgrowth of government-endorsed stray dog eradication programs. In 1995 a furrier in Mongolia added dog fur to its inventory of marmot, fox, sable, and lamb. The dog pelts came from the city of Ulan Bator's population of strays. In one year alone more than 8,000 dogs were shot, their fur fashioned into coats which were sold in Mongolia and Russia. The manufacturer of the coats said at least 10 dogs were needed to make one fur coat—more, if puppies were used.

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, retailers, and store buyers have been able to distance themselves from the cruelty and needless death that are part of the fabric of every fur garment or accessory by somehow viewing "fur" animals as less capable of suffering than pets. 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. Even by making the case that some animals—mink, for example—are a species less sympathetic or appealing and, so, less worthy of concern.

None of those arguments could even be considered about the dog and cat fur trade, which we found to be nothing less than barbaric and heartless. Documentation from this investigation, including many hours of videotape footage and hundreds of photographs, shows that the methods of housing, transporting, and slaughtering dogs and cats may be unparalleled in their cruelty.

ONE CHINESE COMPANY reportedly sells 10,000 dog and cat fur coats to Russia each year and claims that companies in Europe use dog skin in shoes and handbags and use dog fur in fur trim, though it may not be identified as dog fur.

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