June was a busy month for mink, one of our favourite farmed animals and so much cuter than cows, right?… Read More
June was a busy month for mink, one of our favourite farmed animals and so much cuter than cows, right? So let's start our Fur in the News roundup with a mink farm attack in Ontario, Canada, where animal extremists (who later claimed responsibility) released 1,600 mink from their pens. Normally farmers manage to retrieve a lot of their animals following such attacks, but this time there was another danger: the mink were new mothers, and the lives of their tiny kits were put at great risk due to the cold temperature and their need to feed constantly.
For a change, it was our turn to show disturbing photos of animal suffering, because many of the mink did not run off to start a wonderful new life in the wild. Read our piece: Mink Liberation : 5 Facts the ALF Doesn’t Want You to Know.
Check out our new series, A Year on a Mink Farm. After mating, two mink enjoy a post-coital snuggle. Photo: Truth About Fur.
Does all this talk about mink farming put you in the mood to learn more? Then check out our new series entitled A Year on A Mink Farm (see above). Part 1 is about breeding and Part 2 is about whelping and weaning.
Dumb and Dumber
June wasn't a good month for the animal rights extremists (insert fist pump here) because they did some stupid things and the media took note.
We loved this VICE feature on YouTube's most famous Canadian trapper, and if you are looking for some new series to watch over the summer, look no further than the Katmai National Park live bear cam - documenting naps, fishing, and general furry cuteness all summer. This is reality television at its best.
If you haven't already subscribed to get our blog into your inbox, enter your email address here.
Have you ever visited a mink farm? Are you interested to know more about the care farmed mink receive? Senior… Read More
Mink kits are born with their eyes closed and without fur; they are completely dependent on their mothers for food and warmth. Photo: Truth About Fur.
Have you ever visited a mink farm? Are you interested to know more about the care farmed mink receive? Senior Truth About Fur writer Alan Herscovici asked "Les", a third-generation Nova Scotia mink farmer, to give us a personal tour and explain the work he does during a typical year. In Part 1: Breeding, Les explained the beginning of the mink production cycle that takes place in Spring. Now we move on to the period April - June and Part 2: Whelping and Weaning.
Truth About Fur (TaF): When are the young mink born and what do you do to prepare for them?
“Les” (Nova Scotia mink farmer): Some of the first litters can come as early as mid-April. Most are born towards the end of April, beginning of May. Even before the young are born, however, the mink farmer has plenty of work to do.
First we prepare the pens to receive young mink, or “kits”, by covering the regular 1 ½-inch by 1-inch flooring mesh with a ½-inch by 1-inch plastic-coated mesh. This does not allow manure to fall away as easily, but it protects the small kits.
We also install a plastic funnel guard at the entrance of the nest box, to keep in the straw or wood shavings that will make a warm nest when the kits are born. We are constantly building up those shavings and forming them into a bowl shape, to keep the kits near the centre of the nest where the mother can nurse them and keep them warm. When you are preparing nest boxes like this for several thousand females, it keeps you pretty busy!
TaF: Is there anything special you do when the kits are born?
Les: Whelping is one of the busiest times on a mink farm. From first thing in the morning until late at night we are in the barns, checking to see who’s been born, ensuring that their bedding is in a good shape to keep the kits in the centre of the box.
We are also watching for any kits that may be born tangled in their umbilical cords. 99% of the time, the moms take good care of things themselves: eating the placentas, cleaning and nursing the babies. But sometimes you will have five babies wound together in the umbilical cords so tightly that the mother can’t free them. We take them to the little surgery section of the barn where we have heat lamps and scalpels. Once we’ve cut them free and cleaned them up, we return them to their mothers.
While we’re ensuring that the new-borns are safe, we are also watching the kits born over the past few days, to be sure they are warm enough and nursing well. We are also on the look-out for little ones that are not getting enough milk; perhaps there are too many kits in the litter. You learn to recognize their weak, hungry cries. If necessary, we may move a kit to an adoptive mother with a smaller litter.
When litters are too large, the smallest kits may be offered to good mothers with small litters. The kit is first presented to the female at a safe distance. If she sniffs and licks at it, the kit can be placed into the nest box to be raised with her other kits. Photo: Truth About Fur.
TaF: Mink will adopt kits from another female?
Les: Often they will. You pick a female that is doing a good job caring for a small litter, and hold the tiny, young kit near her. If she snaps at it, you try another female. But if she sniffs and licks it, then you can slowly slide the kit beside her and usually she will care for it with the rest of her litter.
TaF: All this sounds like a lot of work with so many young mink.
Les: It is! During this whole period we are checking every litter several times each day. Newborn mink kits are tiny. At birth, their eyes are still closed and they have no fur, so they are very prone to hypothermia. In addition to a good bed of shavings, we keep a plywood cover over the nest box for a while, to keep in heat.
At about 20 days old, these mink kits now have fur, but still enjoy sleeping close to one another for warmth. Photo: Truth About Fur.
TaF: And when are the kits weaned?
Les: As the kits get bigger, we remove the plastic shield and move the food and water closer to the nest box. There is also a shelf in the pen area where the female can get away from the kits, to rest herself and encourage her young to fend for themselves.
At about one month, they will start licking at the fresh feed we put on the pens every day, and then it’s a few more weeks before they are fully weaned.
By mid-June, we can also start removing the small gauge mesh from the floor of the pens, to keep them cleaner. This continues through into late June for the litters born later. It is good that the litters are not all born at the same time; it helps to spread out the work!
This mink kit is one month old and a little bigger than most at this age. He's an "only child" and gets all the milk! Photo: Truth About Fur.
TaF: It must be very satisfying to see the kits come out of the nest box and feed themselves.
Les: It is, because we have been working very hard to ensure that they make it. It is so strange - insulting really - when some activists claim that we are cruel to our animals, because we work so hard to ensure that they are healthy. We are watching for signs of dehydration, of hypothermia; it takes so much experience and concentration to watch for all the things that can go wrong with young animals. If you don’t love working with animals and caring for them, you probably shouldn’t be a mink farmer!
TaF: And how did you become a mink farmer, Les?
Les: I am the third generation of mink farmers in my family, and before that there were two more generations who were trappers and early experimenters with breeding mink in captivity. So I guess mink farming is in my genes. I enjoy working with animals, and I enjoy working with mink. It’s a passion, for sure!
What really happens when misguided animal-rights zealots break into fur farms, cut fences, open cages and “liberate” mink? Here are five… Read More
What really happens when misguided animal-rights zealots break into fur farms, cut fences, open cages and “liberate” mink? Here are five facts about "mink liberation" the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and their activist cheerleaders don’t want you to know!
1. Most “liberated” mink don’t enjoy their “freedom” for long!
Farmed mink are not wild animals. They have been raised in captivity for more than 100 generations - that’s more than 2,000 years in human terms - and are ill-equipped to fend for themselves in nature.
In fact, farmed mink have been selectively bred to be less aggressive and have never had to hunt for their food. Many “liberated” mink therefore die from dehydration or starvation. And because they associate the sound of vehicles with the arrival of the farmer’s motorized feed cart, many are attracted to roads where they are run over by cars.
In their boastful press releases, activists never show the mangled results of these deadly encounters. The media also generally choose to protect public sensibilities. But mink farmers are left to clean up the remains of animals they cared for since birth.
The carnage is not pretty, but we decided that the public has a right to see the truth about these mink “liberations”. I took the following picture last Fall on the road outside a Quebec mink farm, the day after activists broke in and released several hundred mink. So far, no one has been charged for intentionally subjecting mink to the suffering you see here:
"Liberated” mink sometimes run towards moving cars, perhaps because they think the sound is of their farm's feed cart. The result is often lethal. Photo: Truth About Fur.
2. Mink that do survive, wreak havoc on local livestock and biodiversity
Inevitably, some “liberated” mink do survive, at least for a while, and especially if neighbours keep an outdoor chicken run or duck pond! The results are not good for the chickens and ducks.
Even more worrisome for biologists is the potential for the transmission of disease, to and from wild populations, and the possibility of weakening the gene pool if even a few domesticated mink survive long enough to mate with their wild cousins.
3. Releasing nursing females is just plain stupid!
Releasing farm-raised mink is never a good idea, but it takes a special sort of idiot to break into a farm while the females are nursing their young. This is exactly what some still-unidentified pea-brains did last month in southern Ontario. During the night of May 30-31, they cut the perimeter fence of a mink farm near the town of St. Mary’s and opened the cages of 1,600 nursing females.
The young kits, just 2-4 weeks old, are completely dependent on their mothers. With little or no fur (some still won’t even have their eyes open), they can easily die from hypothermia or dehydration. The farmers spend long hours in the barn through this critical period, to ensure that the kits are nursing and well cared for.
Mink kits are born with their eyes closed and without fur; they are completely dependent on their mothers for food and warmth. Photo: Truth About Fur.
Luckily, most of the females "liberated" in St. Mary's did not go very far when their cages were opened, precisely because their young kits were nearby. So most of the females were quickly rescued, but there was no way of knowing which litters belonged to which!
Farmers will sometimes move nursing kits from large litters to be adopted by a female with fewer young. But this is done slowly and carefully, to ensure that the female will accept her new charge. But in St. Mary's, there was no choice but to return the females to cages at random, and hope that their maternal instinct would win out.
4. The livelihood of small family farms is put in jeopardy
A farm invasion is clearly very damaging: the female mink have been fed and cared for since the previous year, and the kits represent the income needed to cover these and other expenses. The damage to the livelihood of the farm family, however, goes far beyond these immediate losses.
The success of a mink farm is directly related to the quality of the fur produced. Fur quality, in turn, is determined by nutrition and care, but also by genetics. Each year, mink farmers carefully select the animals they will retain for reproduction; they are constantly working to improve the quality of their herd.
Mink farmers carefully select the animals they will retain for breeding, and keeping meticulous records is vital to their success. Photo: Zimbal Mink Farm.
Tragically, although most “liberated” mink are quickly recovered, their genetic history is usually lost. Breeding records are kept on cards attached to the mink pens. But there is no way to know which pens the recovered mink were released from. Since many North American farms are now operated by a second or third generation of the family, decades of genetic records - and work - are lost.
ALF criminals know all this: on their websites they brag about destroying breeding records and encourage others to do the same. How can these misguided activists claim to be “non-violent” when they destroy the life-work of several generations?
5. Mink “liberations” are a direct attack on democracy and everyone’s freedom!
The communiqué makes chilling reading for anyone who values democracy and personal freedom. In addition to the muddled collection of misinformation (e.g., claims that farmed mink are “mercilessly trapped in painful leghold traps” and suffer “a painful and agonizing death” on farms), the text states openly that Animal Liberation Front activists are using “economic sabotage” to raise costs for people working with animals, with the goal of putting them out of business.
All society is threatened by people who think they have a right to sabotage legitimate businesses to further their own ideological agenda
On a personal level, farmers and their families are being terrorized by these attacks on their property, their animals and their livelihoods. (Intruders are sometimes armed with baseball bats and other weapons.) On a broader level, it is all of society that is threatened by people who think their beliefs give them the right to break into private property and sabotage legal businesses.
And what do mainstream animal activist groups say about such criminal activity? Unfortunately, they often resort to Orwellian doublespeak: “We do not support illegal activity,” they insist. “But we understand why some people feel the need to stop this industry at any cost!”
Nice try. But we can turn this doublespeak on its head: if mainstream groups did not play so fast and loose with the facts in their verbal attacks on the fur trade, perhaps impressionable young activists would not be lured into such criminal activity!
***
What else do you think ALF doesn't want us to know about mink "liberation"? Please leave a comment below! And see what Fur Commission USA has to say about mink "liberation".
Let’s start this month’s Fur in the News roundup by reminding everyone about our new project, the Fur Family Album. The… Read More
Let's start this month's Fur in the News roundup by reminding everyone about our new project, the Fur Family Album. The story of fur starts long before a fancy coat is seen on a catwalk or photographed on a celebrity. It starts with the trapline or the farm, then the auction, the processing, the design, the making, and the store. Help us to tell the real story of the fur industry by sending us photographs of your experience of fur. Please read our full introduction to this project and then familiarize yourself with our submission requirements.
Screen grab of Angora rabbit social experiment video.
Around the World in Fur
Now, we are going to take a little trip around the world and look at the fur news stories that made headlines in different countries. Let's start in Seoul, Korea (above), where some pedestrians got a shock when an animal rights activist ripped hair from their heads, in a pathetic attempt to protest angora. I can't see how violence towards passersby is going to further animal activists' cause, but then again, I don't understand much of anything they do.
THE GUARDIAN: A bearded seal. Greenland’s hunters harvest approximately 150,000 seals a year, and biologists calculate that a figure of 500,000 annually would be sustainable. Photo: Paul Souders/Corbis.
Let's move to Europe, to Germany specifically, where another activist planted needles into meat in a supermarket as a protest against the meat industry. The words "mad cow" come to mind!
Moving over to England, where a soap opera actress led a protest in front of Harvey Nichols to express anger at the store's decision to start selling fur again. Apparently her cause isn't that popular as she was the only person who turned up to the protest. Activists all over England were busy doing crazy things, including threatening to burn a TV presenter's children because of a BBC investigation into badger culls. Interesting that they want to save the badgers but burn children.
But maybe the craziest activist of the month award goes to English singer Morrissey who used Ireland's gay marriage referendum as a platform to remind people that meat and fur farming is bad, and meat eaters are no better than paedophiles. No words to describe his comments ... no words ... Finally for England, Canadian Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq played in London last month and that prompted some press about her music, her distaste for PETA and her support of sealing.
Let's end in Canada with a lovely seal dinner and some nice sealskin clothes for your closet, shall we? But beware of crazy shoplifting seals, like this one, who stormed a grocery store in search of fish and took off when he realized that the goods he planned to steal were fruit. That's what I do when I find out that the dinner host is serving vegan!
Have you ever visited a mink farm? Are you interested to know more about the care farmed mink receive? Senior… Read More
Have you ever visited a mink farm? Are you interested to know more about the care farmed mink receive? Senior Truth About Fur writer Alan Herscovici asked "Les", a third-generation Nova Scotia mink farmer, to give us a personal tour and to explain the work he does during a typical year on a mink farm. In this first installment, Les explains the beginning of the mink production cycle: breeding. Welcome to Spring on a mink farm!
Winter doesn't release its grip easily in Nova Scotia! It's March and breeding season, as a farm worker heads out to the sheds with a delivery of mink feed. Photo: Truth About Fur.
Truth About Fur (TaF): What does Spring mean for you on the mink farm?
Les (Nova Scotia mink farmer): Like most farmers, our production cycle begins in the Spring. As the days get longer in the first half of March, it’s breeding season for the mink.
We will have selected our breeding stock back in November/December. In choosing breeders, we take several factors into account. We are looking for size, fur colour and quality, for sure. But we are also watching for females that produce larger litters and take good care of their young.
We also want mink that are easy to handle and that thrive in the farm environment.
Not least important, we select for resistance to disease; we use blood tests to help identify the most disease-resistant animals for reproduction. We are constantly working to improve the genetic quality of our herd, for health, temperament and fur quality.
Les: It’s all natural, there’s no artificial insemination. For breeding, we bring the females to the males because they are easier to manage.
"Silly female mink with tongue out,” says Les. “This is not usual, but funny!" Photo: Truth About Fur.
On our farm we have done something to make this much easier: instead of catching the female to move her, we developed removable and interchangeable nest boxes. When the female is in her nest box, we can close the door to her larger pen with a sliding panel. We carry her nest box, with the female in it, to the male’s pen and insert it there in place of his, after shooing the male into his pen. Then all we have to do is open the sliding panel and the party begins.
After mating, the female will return to her nest box, which is her territory. We close the sliding panel and bring her back to her pen. The whole operation is completed without handling the animals, with no trouble or stress for either mink or people!
A black male mink and brown female rest after mating. As seen here, male mink are considerably larger than females. Photo: Truth About Fur.
TaF: Do males breed more than one female?
Les: Yes, each male is usually mated with about five females. When we introduce a female into a male’s pen, we watch to be sure that mating occurs and record that date. The female will be bred with a second male about a week later, because ovulation in mink is provoked by intercourse. The second mating also provides insurance in case the first male was infertile. We try to breed our females three times, for maximum assurance.
TaF: What happens next?
Les: It is important to disturb the mink as little as possible during the period when the fertilized eggs are implanting. Some producers will increase the hours of light in the barn during this period, but we find that the natural lengthening of the days is sufficient for implantation and gestation. We will also decrease the fat in the females’ diet and increase the percentage of protein during gestation.
Removable nest boxes allow female mink to be brought to a male's pen for breeding without the need for any physical handling that might cause stress. Photo: Truth About Fur.
After some 30-odd years of tracking animal activists and speaking out for the fur trade (and some of those years… Read More
My grandfather Armand Herscovici learned the furrier’s art from his father in Paris, before coming to Montreal in 1913. He is shown here examining Persian Lamb skins in his stockroom. This photo (taken in the early 1950s) is the only one we have of my grandfather at work at A-J Herscovici Furs Ltd, the company he founded with his son and my father, Jack.
After some 30-odd years of tracking animal activists and speaking out for the fur trade (and some of those years were quite “odd” indeed!), I have learned two important things. First: we members of the fur family are very proud of who we are and what we do. Second: most of the public knows almost nothing about us; in fact, they have rarely heard from us at all!
Truth About Fur was created to address this serious shortcoming. When North American auction houses, trade and breeder associations met to plan this project, the first goal we identified was “to take back control of our own story”. We pledged to give a voice to the fur trade ... and to put a human face on our industry!
Fur Family Profiles
Why is it important to put “a human face” on the fur trade? Because it is easy for Joe Public to believe activist claims that trappers or farmers are cruel or irresponsible if they’ve never met one. It is much harder to believe such lies when they can see and hear real trappers and farmers speaking for themselves. That’s why the farmer and trapper video “profiles” are such an important part of our Truth About Fur website.
We can be proud that, in little more than a year, TruthAboutFur.com is making its mark. More than 12,000 people visited over the past few months, with 42% of traffic coming from the USA, 38% from Canada, and 20% international. Most important: journalists, consumers, political authorities, students and other researchers are now using our site.
Now it’s time to take Truth About Fur to another level, and for this we need your help! We are creating an on-line Fur Family Photo Album and we want your old and new pictures: Grandad’s first mink farm, a beautiful day on the trap-line, Aunt Eve sewing the lining into a new fur coat.
Our photo album will serve two main purposes. For members of the trade, the album will be a place where we can share the pride we all feel for what we do - and for the family members who, more often than not, blazed the trail for us. For the public, the album can help show who we really are - to break the caricature of “the evil trapper/farmer/furrier” that activists would like the public to believe.
Four Generations of Herscovicis
To start the ball rolling, I am happy to contribute two photos.
The first, above, shows my grandfather, Armand Herscovici, examining Persian Lamb skins in his manufacturing atelier, in the early 1950s. Armand came to Canada as a young man, in 1913. He had learned the art of the furrier from his own father, my great grandfather, in Paris, where the family settled after fleeing anti-Semitic violence (pogroms) in Romania. After the Second World War his son and my father, Jack, joined him in “A-J Herscovici Furs Ltd” - the company Jack proudly maintained until his retirement in 1992.
The second, below, shows my father visiting with me at the 2002 NAFFEM, the wonderful high-end North American fur show run for the benefit of the whole trade by the Canadian Fur Trade Development Institute (CFTDI) in Montreal for 30 years, until 2013. In 2014, it morphed into StyleLab-Montreal.
My father, Jack, visiting me at the 2002 NAFFEM. My father was a member of the show committee for many years in the early days of the Montreal fur show.
Now it’s your turn! We want your photos, and also the stories behind them. To learn how to send your photos and stories to be posted in our new on-line album, please go to Fur Family Album Submission Requirements.
Let’s show the world the true face of the North American fur trade!
Our least favourite rock star continued his uninformed tirade against the seal hunt. I read last week that Paul McCartney is one of the richest musicians in the world, so maybe he'd like to donate some his hundreds of millions to finding alternative work for all the seal hunters he protests against. Or even better, maybe he could just shut up and mind his own business.
Our other big April event was Earth Day - and we were sure to remind everyone about how fur is a green, renewable resource that is much less harmful to the planet than most of the alternatives.
More Animal Rights Nonsense
Let's move on to the thorns in our side ... those pesky animal rights activists. But the good news is, they are getting lots of bad press!
PETA's lamb shearing campaign (below) caused outrage, Meanwhile this article is exposing how PETA targets children in its advertising campaigns (this really is sickening). Then PETA stooped to new lows by teaming up with former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson and controversial Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio (known for his total disregard of human rights when treating his prisoners) to promote vegetarian diets for prisoners. This video highlights just how hypocritical this campaign is.
There have been a lot of news articles talking about how important it is to look at both sides of the story - especially when it comes to issues involving animal rights. This article about a zoo in Vancouver was a prime example of how people can be incredibly misinformed about why zoos exist and how they get their animals. This piece, entitled "Don’t believe everything you see: the truth about undercover videos", explains how activists get their videos and how normal farming practices can be misinterpreted as cruelty. Hopefully we'll be seeing fewer and fewer such videos as legislators move to shut them down; Senate Bill 433, or the Property Protection Act, currently working its way through the North Carolina state legislature, is just one example.
If you find yourself with a bit of extra fur lying around, you may want to consider some new, innovative uses for fur. How about a seal skin g-string? Or check out this crow who steals panda fur to line his nest.
Our most popular videos this month were this one of a vet trying to save a buck who is drowning from the weight of a dead buck whose antlers are locked with his (this is super suspenseful!), and this one of a bear trying to eat a fake deer.
I’ve been told I’ve caught the “fur bug”, and I couldn’t agree more. I’m not only in love with this… Read More
I’ve been told I’ve caught the "fur bug", and I couldn’t agree more. I’m not only in love with this beautiful, natural material, but I’m also attracted by the industry. People living off the land, small family businesses, and the fact that I’m welcomed with open arms in farms, auction houses and design studios around the world, make me so happy to be a part of the international fur family.
But there’s been one thing that’s been annoying me and I think it's time to set the record straight.
Tree Huggers and Lefties
As a campaigner for fur, I’ve been called a few nasty things by animal activists, but what annoys me most is when people in our trade refer to “tree huggers” and “lefties” as being the enemies of the fur trade.
For the record, I’m not what you would call a “tree hugger” (I find that people are much better for hugging!), but I am a tree lover and I’m sending as much love as possible towards the forests. I love nature and I want to protect it, and it strikes me as so strange that animal activists are referred to as “tree huggers” as an insult.
Aren’t all you hunters, trappers and farmers also tree "huggers” or lovers in your own way? You want to protect the land and nature too, don’t you? Where will we hunt and trap if all of the forests are cut down?
Proud to Be Left
When it comes to politics, I’m definitely “left of center” and proud of it. So are a lot of people working in the fur industry, notably Mark Oaten, CEO of the International Fur Federation.
Mark is a former senior member of the Liberal Democrats, the third-largest political party in the UK. To clarify for those of you not familiar with British politics, the Lib Dems make the US Democratic Party look like Tea Party activists by comparison.
And yet ... he and I, and many other “lefties”, love fur and dedicate a part of our lives to ensuring that this industry thrives and grows.
So why the "leftie" jibes? Why do some of us use “tree hugger” as an insult?
Let’s save our insults for the people who are trying to destroy the industry we love.
Just because I’m a staunchly left, female, half-Muslim immigrant that loves trees, doesn’t mean I can't also succumb to the fur bug. It doesn't mean I can't also love fur, farmers, trappers, and the wonderful history and traditions of this industry.
Let’s embrace the diversity of the international fur family and use our energy to ensure that this industry thrives and continues to succeed for as many years as people have been wearing fur. That’s a long time, by the way.
It’s April, so let’s start our Fur in the News roundup for March with Canada Goose, maker of some of the world’s finest winter jackets. Unfortunately Canada… Read More
It’s April, so let’s start our Fur in the News roundup for March with Canada Goose, maker of some of the world's finest winter jackets. Unfortunately Canada Goose is now making headlines for the wrong reason.
“A complaint filed with the Competition Bureau alleges Canada Goose makes 'false and misleading' claims in the marketing of its popular winter jackets. Animal Justice - an animal rights group that filed the complaint on behalf of six individuals - disputes the company's claims that its jackets use coyote fur that is ethical and that coyotes are killed humanely," reported The Record from Toronto. It seems like the complaint doesn’t have a coyote leg to stand on, but we are watching this closely nonetheless.
And since I’m on the topic of wild Canadian fur, my favourite article this month was from Al-Jazeera, who did this well researched article entitled Canada’s Wild Fur Trade Returns. It has lots of pretty pictures, too (like the one above)! Let’s hope people start to appreciate the wild furs from up North, so the business booms and the people there can afford the $65 chickens in their grocery stores.
If you are planning on doing some shopping soon, we suggest these fur headphones from Dolce & Gabbana, a steal at $8,000 ;-) You could also check out the goods from Elama, a Montreal-based fur brand that has been making waves, order a custom-made piece from Diane Giroux (she wrote a blog post for us this month), or step into Harpers in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which has just celebrated 75 years in fur retailing.
Recruiting on Campus
Meanwhile, we learnt a few worrying things about what’s happening on university campuses.
We’ve also found out that Parsons School of Design in New York has at least one instructor who could do with a refresher course on the meaning of primary research. An adjunct professor wrote a scathing article about the fur industry and its farming, but appears never to have actually visited a farm.
Lastly, I’m typing this from a desk in Finland, where I am guest lecturing at Centria University in Pietersaari, one of very few universities in Europe that offer a technical fur design course. I’ll be reporting back to you about details of its students' work, this amazing course and the incredible campus.
Brrrrrrr...aless!
We can’t do a monthly fur roundup without making fun of the activists, so here’s a video of two girls protesting for PETA, half naked on an ice rink. Too bad they don’t know how to skate or that ice skates are made from leather. Wouldn't it be nice for once if PETA tried to get the public's attention without naked women or falsified farm videos?
Meanwhile across the pond, a few annoying Brits are ruffling feathers, or shall I say, ruffling pelts. Joanna Lumley and ex-model Twiggy are campaigning to convince London department store Harvey Nichols not to reverse its fur ban. Given the popularity of the Origin Assured label and the fact that fur is a fashionable and profitable product to be selling, I doubt that's going to happen.
And the most annoying Brit of the month award (actually, second most annoying Brit since PETA president Ingrid Newkirk owns the title) goes to Stella McCartney, who not only showed a tacky collection of fake fur coats on her Fall 2015 runway, but is also trying to convince the Queen's Guard to replace their bear skin caps with fake fur.
Lastly, let’s look at the most popular images of the month. The awesome guy above got over 250 likes on our Facebook page! I’m not sure if it was because you all thought he was cute or if you want to make him into a scarf.
And this photo of a farmer saving a calf born in the snow by bringing him into the hot tub warmed our hearts (and the calf’s heart, too, I'm sure). It's a good reminder that livestock farmers aren’t the monsters activists portray them as, but rather are some of the hardest working, most compassionate people in the world - not to mention the fact they put food on our table!
Parting Shot
P.S.: If you've read this article to the end, you probably somewhat enjoyed it or at least thought it was interesting, so please sign up here to Truth About Fur - The Blog, so future articles are delivered straight to your inbox!
As the cold weather settles in for another few months, I cuddle in my small country home on the Bay… Read More
Samples of my exclusive house boots, an harmonious blend of various fabrics, leather and furs.
As the cold weather settles in for another few months, I cuddle in my small country home on the Bay of Fundy. I put on my beaver house-boots and my wool sweater and thank Mother Nature for offering me all I need to keep us warm.
Living in a remote community on the Fundy shore, I am awed by the highest tides in the world. Surrounded by nature and silence, I bow to the sea which brings fish and clams to my table, and to the forests that supply firewood to keep my house cosy and wildlife to complement the seafood
My sewing skills make it possible to make clothing and accessories that will keep us comfortable.
My African seal and coyote jacket.
Living in harmony with this environment, I relish a dream come true after fantasizing about it through all those years of living in some of the mega-cities of the world, a world surrounded by cement and pollution and so reinvented by humans that they can forget where they come from and who they are.
Real Meaning of Sustainability
I was introduced to fur design by professional furriers and artisans who put their skills at work to produce beautiful garments from a natural and renewable resource. Working in the Northern regions of our beautiful country, I’ve discovered the real meaning of sustainability of our natural resources.
I am thankful to the organizations who oversee good management and a respectful attitude toward our natural resources.
I am disappointed by negative and false information still spread by some organizations, sadly giving real environmentalism a bad name while imposing hardship on real people. At a time when “anti-bullying” and other forms of negative behavior are topics of public interest, we should wonder if this sentiment should perhaps apply here.
While attending a recent event where I was able to display my creations, I was overwhelmed by the interest of people asking questions about the different furs in my booth, and reaching out to touch them. Often I heard the comment: “I am nervous about wearing furs ... someone might attack me on the street”.
I reply that they should be strong and be proud of wearing creations from the natural world. Every time I wear my fur coat, people come to me wanting to know what it’s made of and often comment on how beautiful it is.
Meanwhile, as I’m looking out the window at the ice moving with the tides, I am sewing and transforming a seal pelt from a vision into a beautiful garment.
The spectacular view from my studio, with Cape Split on the horizon. This is the land of the creator Glooscap of Mi'kmaq mythology.
Do you hate PETA? Of course you do, but take comfort from the fact this has been a bad year for them…. Read More
Do you hate PETA? Of course you do, but take comfort from the fact this has been a bad year for them. And the latest pratfall by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the affair of the "shocked" cat, may even make you smile.
First, there was the whistleblower whose account of her time as a PETA employee exposed their total unwillingness to rehouse animals (and the gruesome kill rate in their "shelter").
Then there was their defeat in Virginia over the right to call themselves an animal "shelter" at all.
And then there's the fact that fur has once again featured large on fashion catwalks this season.
Could it get any worse - or better, depending on your perspective? Yes, it could!
Now there's this funny, well-made video slamming PETA for their ridiculous attempt to have an earlier video (of a cat being "shocked" with animated electricity) removed from the web.
The cat, of course, was never shocked at all, but Why I Hate PETA is shocking nonetheless. It's shocking that PETA waste their resources threatening people who make comic YouTube videos about their cat! If I donated to PETA (and I'd rather flush my money down the toilet than do this), I'd be annoyed that staff were wasting time doing things like this, rather than, say, saving animals.
Oh yes, PETA don't do that. They just kill them.
WARNING: The song will get stuck in your head, but it's worth it. The video is hilarious!
February 2015 has come and gone, and it’s time for our Fur In The News roundup of the month’s best… Read More
Fendi Fall 2015
February 2015 has come and gone, and it's time for our Fur In The News roundup of the month's best stories. It's a furry time of year in the fashion world right now. For starters, we are still in the depths of winter and furs are all over the streets.
On the high fashion front, February is the start of fashion month, when the top catwalk designers show their Fall 2015 collections. Who ever said fur is dead was very wrong. (Well, technically the animals are dead, but fur is VERY alive on our catwalks.) Spotted all over New York, London, Milan, and soon, Paris, fur continues to be a staple in the designer collections.
We've got a soft spot for Fendi, who are famous for their furs and showed a collection of fur-trimmed down coats that look like Canada geese on drugs. (You'll also need some drugs to get over the shock of the price tags.) Check out their show on Style.com.
And while we are talking about designers, Pamela Paquin's brand Petit Mort has been getting a lot of press. She makes fur accessories out of road kill, and we love this feature on her finding her "materials." Of course, the animal rights terrorists activists are still kicking up a fuss, so let's talk about them for a moment.
Are They Terrorists? Hell Yes!
Many of us are following the case of Kevin Johnson and Tyler Lang, two animal rights activists who have served prison terms for releasing mink and foxes from fur farms in the US. They are facing federal charges (under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act) that may result in a further 10 years in prison.
People are debating whether they deserve to be branded as terrorists. We think you all know our feelings on the subject: you terrorize people and their farms, you are a terrorist. Read some articles on the story here and here.
And since we are on the (fun) topic of animal rights activists being charged with felonies, we also suggest reading this article in the New York Times about a woman who stole two ducks from a farm which produces foie gras.
We do loathe giving the activists so many column inches, but we'll end it with this fantastic video aired during the Superbowl. Made by the good people at the Center for Consumer Freedom and PeTA Kills Animals, it was inspired by the horrific kill rates at PeTA's "shelters." Warning: this is a bit of a tear-jerker.
"Fur: An Issue of Life and Death"
February saw the end of a fantastic exhibition on the fur industry, its issues, and its history. Entitled "Fur: An Issue of Life and Death", this show at the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen was a fascinating trip into the history of the use of fur, from ancient to modern times.
Featuring a massive collection of high-fashion items, the show certainly demonstrated the innovative designs that can be made from fur. There was a "guess your fur" activity (which demonstrated how fake fur can be good quality, as it was hard to identify which one was not real). Also highlighted were the fur and skin costumes dating from 1850 to 1950 from Greenland, Canada, Alaska, Siberia and the Sami areas of Scandinavia. The seal stomach raincoats were very interesting to see.
"Fur: An Issue of Life and Death", National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen
That's it for now. Spring is only three weeks away so enjoy these last days of winter with your minks, foxes, coyotes, lynx, beavers, and chinchillas, just as long as they aren't fake!
Zimbal Mink Farm: A Wisconsin Family Affair
Manage Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
