Fur Free Alliance Information About Use of Fur Bearing Animals for Fur

4. Cats fare no better...

Cats fare no better than dogs in China. At a thriving fur market 300 miles to the north of the city of Jinan, in the province of Hebei, investigators located cat breeding farms and a factory that processes cats into furs. According to people at the fur market and the factory, the cats are killed by hanging. Or they may be hung from a wire while water is poured down their throats through a hose until they drown. Then a slit is made in the cat's stomach, the skin is opened, and the fur is pulled over the cat's head. The furriers say that the cats may still be alive while they are being skinned. What's important to the skinners is that the cat's skin is preserved as much as possible in one piece to optimize its usefulness.


Cat furs, both dressed skins and finished garments, were openly displayed in this Chinese fur and leather company in Beijing. These photos alone represent the suffering and death of hundreds of cats. On the right, a "special" fur plate made of cat heads.

Factory workers sort cat furs by color. Investigators were told that more than 100,000 cat furs were in storage at that one factory alone.

Ironically, long-haired cats are kept as pets in China. Short-haired cats, especially gray cats and orange tabby cats, are kept outside, generally tethered by wire, and raised for their pelts. Estimates are that about a half million cats are killed each season, from October to February.

AT A FUR MARKET in a town some 300 miles north of Jinan, investigators saw fox, rabbit, and other kinds of fur, including, by their estimate, thousands of dog and cat furs, offered in shops around the market.

INVESTIGATORS were told by a middleman in the Chinese fur trade that any label could be put in any garment or fur product, depending on the preference of the buyer—in other words, the company supplying the fur was perfectly willing to label dog or cat fur as being fur from some other species, a species presumably more acceptable to consumers.

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