CBS 2's Fake Fur Investigation Spawns Legislation - Faux Fur May Be Dog or Cat Hair (and Skin)

Here's a positive spin on this. We're living in a society so appalled by the fur trade that manufacturers think they'll do a better job selling fake fur than real. The market would rather purchase the more humane choice and the manufacturer has to lie just to get the higher-end (but, inhumane) material into the product.

It's disgusting that these products exist, but it's at least a positive reflection on our society that the animal abusers have to go to such lengths.

FUR-BEARING ANIMALS

http://www.infurmation.com/animals.php

The fur industry desperately wants the public to forget that fur-bearing animals are anything more than a coat collar or trim on a handbag. However, fur-bearers are important in their own right, playing essential roles in their ecosystems. Get to know the fascinating species most commonly used by the fur trade.

http://www.infurmation.com/animals.php

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Fur Trim
The fur industry is working on a whole new line. No longer limited to full-length mink coats or fox-fur jackets, fur trim is the rage. From suit collars to glove linings, fur trim is being used as an accessory for many fashion items. Fur-trimmed items currently are a half billion-dollar industry. Fur trim is a frivolous luxury responsible for the deaths of millions of animals each year. The number of animals killed for fur trim is expected to overtake the number of animals killed for full-fur garments. Because the trim trade doesn't place as much emphasis on pelt quality, color, and uniformity, the quality of care given to furbearers is diminished.

Fur Factory Farms
More than 45 million animals worldwide, including raccoon dogs, rabbits, foxes, mink, and chinchillas, are raised in cages and killed each year for their fur. Not only are cage-raised animals killed inhumanely, but they suffer from numerous physical and behavioral abnormalities induced by the stress of caging conditions. After spending their short lives in squalid conditions, animals raised on fur farms are killed by cruel methods that preserve the pelt, such as gassing, neck-breaking and anal electrocution.

Millions of wild animals, including bobcats, coyotes, foxes, lynx, raccoons, and wolves, suffer and die in traps each year. Countless dogs and cats, deer, birds and other animals—including threatened and endangered animals—are also injured and killed each year by the indiscriminate traps. Traps, including steel-jaw leghold traps, body-gripping traps, and wire neck snares, are inhumane devices that inflict great pain and suffering. Both the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the American Animal Hospital Association have declared the steel-jaw leghold trap to be inhumane.

Even companion animals like dogs and cats are at risk of severe injury and death in traps and snares. A sampling of HSUS case history reports reveals just how traumatic the experience can be, both for pets and their owners.

Cats and Dogs
A 1998 investigation by The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) exposed the international fur industry's ugly secret: the widespread slaughter of companion animals—domestic dogs and cats—for the manufacture of clothing, accessories, and trinkets. Investigators witnessed firsthand the brutal slaughter of domestic dogs and cats in China and other Asian nations. Many of these animals are raised in cold, unsanitary breeding compounds. Some are strays. Others are obviously pets who were most likely stolen. And the killing methods are grisly. Dogs—German shepherds, chows, and mixed breeds—are bludgeoned or bled to death. Cats are often strangled by wire nooses.

Canada's annual commercial seal hunt is the largest slaughter of marine mammals on the planet. Over 300,000 harp and hooded seals are killed for their pelts each year, with many skinned alive, according to independent veterinary reports. The last time this many seals were killed—in the 1950s and 1960s—the harp seal population was reduced by as much as two-thirds. In 2005, 98.5% of the seals killed were just two months of age or younger. At the time of slaughter, many had not yet eaten their first solid meal or taken their first swim. They literally had no escape from the "hunters."

Newborn and Fetal Karakul Lambs
Garments made from the pelts of newborn karakul lambs—often referred to as "Persian lamb," "karakul," and "astrakhan,"—are a staple of the fur fashion world. So too are garments made of fetal karakul lambs (known as "broadtail"), which the fur industry claims are crafted from animals born prematurely due to accident or exposure. In March 2000, investigators with The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) toured a karakul sheep farm near Bukhara, in the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, and found that pregnant ewes are in fact routinely slaughtered for these fetal pelts. Graphic videotape shot at the farm shows a pregnant ewe held down, her throat slit and her stomach slashed wide so that a worker could remove the developing fetus—the "raw material" for coats, vests, and other broadtail fashions. What's more, contrary to the industry's claims that karakul lamb fur is merely a byproduct of meat production, HSUS investigators videotaped newborn lambs displayed as "samples" of pelt colors before being sent to their death. The pelts were saved, the tiny carcasses discarded as trash.

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Stella McCartney on Fur and the Environment

"Well I don't do leather and I don't do fur and it's not just because I don't eat animals or that I think that half a billion animals a year shouldn't be killed for the sake of fashion. It's because I also believe very much in the connection between fur and leather and the environment. There's a huge connection.

Now, I think more and more people will start to take notice of that—the use of water for tanneries, the chemicals that are used—there's a huge impact environmentally. I try and just think responsibly in the way that I approach business."

"Stella McCartney on ecology, luxury and life," International Herald Tribune, March 24, 2009

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David Goldstein: "This is real fur. This is similar to raccoon dog. Dog. You don't want dog around your neck?

Salesperson: "No."

David Goldstein: "I don't think so."

The salesperson said she didn't know. The owner told me his wholesaler said it was fake fur.

"What if I told you this was dog? What do you think?"

We also found fur that our expert said was consistent with what they have found to be raccoon dog on a coat at the Burlington Coat Factory in Huntington Beach. It's made by Rocawear, the line created by singer Jay-Z. The salesperson didn't seem to care.

David Goldstein: "In the dog family. What do you think of that?"

Salesperson: "I don't care. I come to work. I do my job and I go home."

The label said nothing about the fur on the collar. Neither did the label on a men's jacket we found at Bloomingdale's. The salesperson said it was a fake.

"I really don't think it's real fur," the salesperson said.

Our expert said real fur, possibly fox or rabbit. The bottom line is none of these manufacturers or stores are doing anything wrong because of a secret loophole in the federal labeling laws.

"The loophole is that if the fur is valued at less than $150, there doesn't have to be any mention on the label that there is animal fur on the jacket," Grzybowski said.

That is right, so no matter what the label says if the garment just has a small amount of fur, they don't have to tell you if it's real or fake! So how do you know?

One way is to try and look deep into the fur.

"You want to push the hairs apart and try to get down to the base of the fabric," Grzybowski said. "If you see skin, that is real fur."

On fake fur, if you look closely you see fabric -- not skin -- at the base of the fur.

"The differences are stark," Grzybowski said.

If you cut them open you can really tell the difference.

"This is your real fur, it's leather," Grzybowski said while pointing out a sample of real and fake fur. "This is your fake fur. This is fabric."

That's the best way to tell -- not looking at the label or listening to the salesperson.