This is the third installment in our Hypocrite series, aimed at exposing the celebrities and professionals whose anti-fur arguments are full of holes. Today we are talking about singer-songwriter and TV presenter Brian McFadden.

Your first thought is probably “Who the heck is that and why do I care?” We realize that someone who rose to fame with an Irish boy band called Westlife isn’t exactly worthy of a column here, but this was one hypocrite we just couldn’t resist, because it was TOO EASY.

The Hypocrite: Brian McFadden, ex-boy band singer, now TV presenter and singer-songwriter, who is also the star of PETA’s latest anti-fur campaign (see above).

The Hypocrisy: We’ve gotten into the habit of doing a little bit of research on PETA spokespeople, so after seeing the new campaign, we wandered over to Brian McFadden’s Instagram page, hoping to find a photo of him eating a burger or wearing leather shoes. But what we found was even better. We found a photo of him, less than a year ago, wearing fur!

You are probably thinking, as we did, what if it's fake? Well, PETA condemns wearing fake fur as well as real, so either way he'd be an odd choice for a spokesman. (PETA also believes people shouldn’t have pets, but that’s another story!) But we checked anyway.

Our lead was a tag on Brian's photo to fantastic British accessory designer Charlotte Simone, who works in both real and fake fur. So we emailed the brand and asked if the item was still available. A representative confirmed Brian's scarf is not only still available, but is made of real fox fur. And here it is!

What they say: PETA says, “Brian knows that just like dogs, minks are sensitive animals with emotions and the ability to feel pain – and they deserve better than to be killed for a frivolous fashion accessory.” (Luckily scarves aren’t frivolous fashion accessories, they play the very important role of keeping our necks warm when it's freezing cold!)

What we say: Charlotte Simone makes some seriously beautiful fur accessories, so we totally understand why Brian wears one. But it is all wrong for him to wear fur and campaign against fur at the same time!

Brian, it's time to decide. Either ditch your beloved fur, or - much better - keep it, be warm, be stylish, and ditch PETA.

Violence against women - murdering them even - is acceptable if they are wearing fur. That is the message of the latest shock-and-awe campaign from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Oh my, how silly of me!  PETA is really trying to say that we shouldn’t kill animals for fur. Let’s just hope the young muggers out there appreciate the metaphor!

The campaign video shows a man clubbing a woman in a park with a big stick before stripping a fur coat from her lifeless, semi-naked body. (To complete the sex-and-violence theme, we catch a glimpse of breasts as her stripped body hits the ground.)

The video generated angry comments on social media, denouncing its outrageous trivialization of violence against women. Several commenters suggested that “PETA has finally gone too far” and has now “lost all credibility”. If only they were right.

Unfortunately, PETA understands modern media far better than most of its critics do. It knows that the media, and especially social media, cannot resist sensationalism. PETA’s modus operandi takes a page right out of P.T. Barnum's playbook when he said: “We don’t care what you write about us, so long as you spell our name correctly!”

Or as PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk put it: “We are complete media sluts. We didn’t make up the rules, we just learned how to play the game.”

PetaFiles: A Legacy of Crass Exploitation

Here are a few examples of PETA’s adventures into the land beyond good taste and common decency:

THE HOLOCAUST ON YOUR PLATE campaign of 2003 was a travelling display juxtaposing photos of concentration camp prisoners with images of farm animals in abattoirs. Widely criticised wherever it went, this campaign was banned in Germany.

NEITHER OF US IS MEAT was a 2004 billboard campaign exploiting the case of British Columbia pig farmer Robert Pickton, who abducted and savagely murdered dozens of women. Authorities suspect that he may have fed their corpses to his pigs. PETA's billboards showed a young woman on one side and a pig on the other.

GOT PROSTATE CANCER? was the slogan on PETA billboards in 2000 linking milk to prostate cancer. Featured without his consent was cancer sufferer New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani with a milky moustache. "It's tasteless and inappropriate to exploit my illness,” said Giuliani. “The message they're trying to deliver just makes sense in their own zealous, out-of-control thinking."

GOT BEER? was a 2000 campaign aimed at college campuses, encouraging underage students to drink beer instead of milk. "It's official," claimed PETA's posters. "Beer is better for you than milk." Another advocacy group, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), was understandably not amused. For more on this campaign, read "Hey PETA: Got Ethics?"

We could also mention the 2008 Payback Is Hell billboard, which played off the story of spear fisherman C.J. Wickersham, who survived a shark attack with 800 stitches to his leg. Or PETA’s 2011 request to the US Federal Court to rule that five Sea World orcas be considered as “slaves” in violation of the 13th Amendment. Or Ingrid Newkirk’s call, this year, for Minnesota dentist and Cecil-the-lion hunter Walter Palmer to be hanged. The list goes on.

Raking It In

According to its website, PETA’s excuse for such excesses is that, “Unlike our opposition which is mostly wealthy industries and corporations, PETA must rely largely on free ‘advertising’ through media coverage...”

They omit to mention that PETA raked in more than US$50 million in 2014 alone!

Or that, despite zero tolerance for animal killing by others, PETA routinely kills more than 90% of the pets entrusted to it. In a recent case, PETA staffers allegedly killed a dog they had stolen from someone’s porch! While preaching “compassion”, PETA’s double standards bring to mind Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana’s definition of fanaticism as “redoubling your effort after you've forgotten your aim."

SEE ALSO: HYPOCRITE PROFILE: PINK

Violence Against Women

PETA’s new woman-beating video is particularly disgusting at a time when most people are working to end violence against women. The period from November 25 (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women) through December 10 (Human Rights Day) has been designated as 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, to raise public awareness and mobilize people everywhere to bring about change. Talk about timing!

In fact, I hesitated to write this piece because I am very conscious that we are doing exactly what PETA wants: we are talking about them.

Nonetheless, I do think we need to denounce this latest PETA campaign, and not only because of the unconscionable trivialization of violence against women. This video also exposes how completely superficial PETA’s understanding really is of the environmental and ethical dimensions of the fur debate.

The fur trade is finally getting its story out, with public information campaigns like Furisgreen.com and TruthAboutFur.com. And the media and public are listening. Some may still choose not to wear fur, leather, wool or silk – or to eat meat – and that’s their right. But people are beginning to understand that, unlike most synthetics, fur is a natural and renewable resource that is being produced responsibly and sustainably. The fur trade is also a heritage industry that supports a wide range of cultures, skills and knowledge.

If this vicious video is the best response that PETA can offer to the serious discussion that the fur trade has initiated, its free ride with the media may soon be coming to an end.

This is the second installment in our Hypocrite series, aimed at exposing influential figures whose anti-fur arguments are full of holes. Today we're talking about pop singer Pink, a PETA spokesperson and meat-eating "vegan" who loves wearing leather shoes.

The Hypocrite: Pink, pop singer, "vegan", and current model in PETA’s “Rather Go Naked” anti-fur campaign.

The Hypocrisy: Pink helps the animal rights organisation PETA to campaign against fur. PETA, not coincidentally, also promotes veganism. So, depending on the day of the week, Pink describes her diet as "mostly vegan".

And what does this mean? It means she "occasionally eats chicken and fish," and can even "eat entire buckets of chicken wings." She can also eat "an entire cheesecake in one sitting." She may love wheatgrass smoothies and tofurkey, but at the end of the day, she's just an omnivore like the rest of us.

On the subject of fur, Pink entreats us in her PETA poster to "Be comfortable in your own skin, and let animals keep theirs." But she has no problem with a cow losing its skin so she can wear suede boots.

What they say: PETA says, “P!nk has become known for being super-comfortable in her own skin—so comfortable that she teamed up with PETA and photographer Ruven Afanador to make her point perfectly clear: She wants animals to keep their own skin.”

SEE ALSO: HYPOCRITE PROFILE: STELLA McCARTNEY

What we say: Pink, your suede boots are lovely, but they're made from animal skin. So stop asking the rest of us to let animals "keep their own skin" while wearing it yourself.

Also, your diet of mostly veggies, but with chicken, fish and cheesecake thrown in, sounds great, but don't call yourself "mainly vegan", or even a vegetarian, just because you think it sounds cool (or because PETA told you to). You're an omnivore.

You and PETA are clearly a mismatch, so please stop endorsing them immediately.

We’ll eat our steaks, and you can wash down your chicken with a wheatgrass smoothie.

We’ll wear our fur, and you can wear your suede boots.

And we'll all refrain from telling each other what to do and how to live our lives. Fair enough?

Thirty years! The other day I suddenly realised that this is the 30th anniversary of the publication my book Second Nature: The Animal-Rights Controversy. First published by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in 1985, this was the first serious critique – and is still one of the very few – of the animal-rights movement from an environmental and human-rights perspective.

The publication of Second Nature changed my life. Until then, my interests as a freelance writer had ranged widely, although curiosity about different people and cultures was often a unifying theme: from promoting the cause of Tibetan refugees to exploring the mystical world of Hassidic Jews. While I was brought up in a Canadian fur manufacturing family, the emerging “animal rights” debate was only one story among many.

Now, suddenly, I was thrust into a quickly escalating battle. I was invited to speak with cattle, chicken and hog producers, medical researchers, science teachers, and many others. My message was that people working with animals should speak out about what they do, so the media and public can hear both (or, rather, the many) sides of these complex issues.

I had the opportunity to put theory into practice when I was asked to serve as executive vice-president of the Fur Council of Canada. In that capacity I directed the industry’s “Fur Is Green” campaign and, more recently, the first full-fledged North American information program under the “Truth About Fur” banner.

So what have I learned in more than 30 years of studying and sparring with the animal-rights movement? Here are 10 important lessons, most of which have implications far beyond the debate about fur.

1. The medium is the message. The frenetic pace of modern news cycles clearly favours sensationalism and emotions, the stuff of animal-activist campaigning. In a world of information overload and attention spans measured in sound bites, it is increasingly difficult to discuss complex (aka “real”) issues in any serious way.

2. A picture is worth a thousand words. So good luck explaining to the television audience why well-regulated trapping helps to maintain stable and healthy wildlife populations while the activists' photo of an animal in a trap is projected onto the screen behind you. What the audience is not seeing is the animal suffering (starvation, disease) that results if we “let nature take care of itself”, as activists propose.

Thanks to decades of scientific research, modern trapping methods are much more humane than nature’s way of regulating wildlife populations. But most of us will never see the fox scratching itself raw for weeks before dying of sarcoptic mange, or the bite scars on beaver that fought each other for survival in an overpopulated pond.

3. “Animal rights” is NOT animal welfare. The animal-welfare movement developed to ensure that animals we use – for food, clothing or other purposes – are treated “humanely”, i.e., with respect and as little suffering as possible. Animal rights, by contrast, is a philosophy that claims we have no right to use animals at all. “Not better cages, no cages!” says the Animal Liberation Front slogan.

SEE ALSO: Mink liberation: 5 facts the ALF doesn't want you to know

I traced the origins of this radical new philosophy in Second Nature, and yet, 30 years later, the profound difference between “animal rights” and “animal welfare” is still not understood by most journalists or politicians, let alone the general public. This allows groups like PETA to masquerade as welfare advocates – attracting media attention and credibility with shocking exposés of animal abuse – although PETA really opposes any use of animals, no matter how humanely it is done.

4. Urban trumps rural. It is striking how often rural people play the bad guys in activist campaigns: loggers, miners, ranchers, hunters. This reflects a widening split between rural and urban cultures; for the first time in human history, most of us live in cities. It wasn’t so long ago that most North Americans still had family on the land – you visited grandparents on the farm at Christmas and learned to respect rural skills and knowledge – but not anymore.

Most journalists also live in cities, and with reduced budgets they rarely have time to seek out the rural side of the story. Not surprisingly, media usually reflect an urban bias with little interest in, or understanding of, rural realities.

5. We have lost contact with the real sources of our survival. We all use paper and wood, but it’s “eco-cide” to cut trees. We need metal and glass, but miners are evil. It’s hard to imagine life without gas for cars and oil for heating, without plastics or synthetic textiles – but no oil wells or pipelines here please! Plentiful meat and milk has allowed even poor children to develop healthy minds and bodies, but activists now want us to believe that animal agriculture is a continuation of the Holocaust.

The remarkable productivity of primary producers has given the rest of us the freedom to do many other wonderful things that make a thriving and cultured modern society. And yet, perversely, we use that freedom to attack the people who feed and clothe us!

6. Animal activism is big business. We have come a long way from “the little old ladies in tennis shoes” whose volunteer efforts supported the SPCA and other traditional animal-welfare groups. Groups like PETA rake in some $30 million annually; the so-called Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) collects more than $100 million. And there are dozens of other such groups.

They attract attention with naked “celebrities" or sensationalist “exposés”; they translate their “brand recognition” into income with sophisticated computer-assisted fund-raising techniques. As one leading activist told me: “You can’t win because it costs your industry money to fight us, but we make our money campaigning. The longer the battle, the more we make!”

7. Animal rights reflects a culture in transition. It was Michael Pollan’s 2006 book The Omnivore’s Dilemma that first drew my attention to this aspect of the animal-rights phenomenon. Not long ago our ancestors lived in societies with clear ideas about how one should live, what we should eat, who we should marry, and so on. With the erosion of "traditional values" by globalisation, multiculturalism and secularism, everything is up for grabs.

A trip to the grocery store triggers a complex ethical calculus: should we buy organic or conventional, local or imports, GMOs, trans fats, low cholesterol, gluten free, and on it goes! In this confusion, philosophies that propose a new moral certitude can be very attractive, especially to younger people.

8. Animal activists show more aggression than compassion! Over the past 30 years, the tone and tactics of animal activist campaigning have become much more confrontational. Check out the comments posted on animal-related articles, the Facebook pages of activist groups, videos of “direct action” demonstrations, not to mention the criminal attacks by the Animal Liberation Front.

Compassion for animals has become a pretext for hatred of farmers, furriers, medical researchers and other people. In part, this parallels the hyper-testosteronization of society in general, from the sex and violence of video games and music videos to road rage. But the fundamentalist core of the animal-rights philosophy should not be ignored: i.e., when idealistic young people are told that raising and eating farm animals is the moral equivalent of the Holocaust, don’t be surprised that butcher stores are vandalized.

It seems ironic, nonetheless, that activists who claim to speak for compassion are so keen to attack the livelihoods and cultures of others. Unfortunately, many animal activist organisations have become politically-correct hate groups.

9. Freedom to protest vs. freedom of choice. Freedom of expression is essential in a free society. For that reason, police in western democracies are generally very tolerant of protesters. Where, however, is the balance between the right to protest the sale of fur-trimmed, down-filled parkas, for example, and the right of consumers and retailers to buy and sell such products?

One store in Vancouver has been subjected to rowdy protests several times a week for more than a year! The activists have vowed to put this retailer out of business unless he stops selling Canada Goose coats. Customers are harassed, neighbours are disturbed, the survival of a legal business that pays taxes and employs many young people is threatened – but the rights of a few dozen activists apparently trump everyone else’s interests. Another store selling fur in Hotel Vancouver was subjected to such frequent and aggressive protests that its lease was not renewed, not because the management disliked fur but because their guests felt intimidated. Can you spell “protection racket”?

It is time to ask whether “freedom of expression” includes the right to protest wherever one chooses. If we think it’s wrong to sell fur, this could be expressed in a public park or square as easily as in front of small, family-owned businesses. Or at the seat of government, since it is government that is empowered to decide whether a product should be banned.

After all: if consumers didn't want to buy fur or fur-trimmed coats, retailers would not be stocking them. Protesters are using the freedom that democracy provides as a weapon to short-circuit it.

10. Time to speak out! There are many reasons why activist voices have dominated this debate until now. Farmers, ranchers and medical researchers are busy farming, ranching, and researching. As my activist friend so astutely observed: “It costs you to fight us; we make our money fighting you!”

The natural bias of the media is also a factor: thousands of farmers doing a good job caring for their animals, day in and day out, is not “news”.

Often, too, activist claims seemed so absurd that the people involved felt no need to respond; they didn’t understand that the public can’t know which claims are absurd if the experts remain silent.

Happily, the people who work with animals are beginning to understand the importance of speaking out. In our case, producer and trade associations across North America have joined to produce TruthAboutFur.com. While still a work in progress, we are already seeing impressive results: e.g., our Facebook page now has more than 23,000 “followers”!

Now it is up to everyone to use these tools to make our voices heard. If you see an anti-fur comment in the paper, write a letter or call the journalist to suggest they check out our website. Retailers can provide the URL to consumers who wonder whether it’s “OK” to wear fur. There are great resources for schools. And the website also provides credible information that politicians need to make responsible decisions affecting our industry.

And, finally, perhaps that’s the most important lesson of all from my 30 years of battling “animal rights”: it’s up to each of us to speak out for our industry. Because, as Irish political philosopher Edmund Burke reputedly said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

We encounter a lot of hypocrisy here at Truth About Fur, as it seems most anti-fur folk like bacon, wear leather, or think that synthetics don’t kill animals. (Tell that to the families of the birds that died in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill!) Today’s feature, the first in our Hypocrite series, is about one of the most hypocritical fashion designers we know: Stella McCartney.

The list of Stella McCartney’s hypocritical actions is long. Let’s not start on the fact that her company is owned by the same company that owns Gucci, best known for its leather goods. Or that she has several homes and frequently flies around the world for work. That’s not good for the environment, is it?

We also aren’t going to talk about the fact that Stella McCartney has acknowledged the popularity and beauty of fur by launching her own collection of (synthetic, tacky) fake fur pieces. She routinely uses synthetic materials that are not sustainable and are derived from petroleum by-products, whilst preaching about taking care of the environment. But that’s also not what we are talking about today.

Today we are going to focus on silk.

The hypocrite: Stella McCartney, British fashion designer, lifelong vegetarian, and occasional spokesperson for PETA.

The hypocrisy: Stella McCartney refuses to use leather or fur in her collections, and claims “the decision not to use leather or fur is not just because I don’t eat animals or that I think that millions of animals each year shouldn’t be killed for the sake of fashion. It’s because I also believe in the connection between fur and leather and the environment.”

However, Stella McCartney uses a lot of silk in her collections.

Do you know how silk is harvested? Silk worms are boiled alive in their cocoons, allowing the long fibres to be extracted. This gets less media attention than fur because larvae aren’t as cute as mink and fox.

What they say: PETA describes Stella McCartney as an “inspired and compassionate trendsetter” whose “award-winning collections are proudly free of leather, fur, and other skins.” Funny they didn’t mention that her collections include many garments made from animals that have been boiled alive.

What we say: If Stella McCartney wants to make fashion collections without leather or fur, then that is fine. But can she please spare us the preaching about how the leather and fur industries are cruel to animals and the environment, when her own web store is stocked with garments made from non-biodegradable accessories and dresses whose fabric’s production process involves boiling animals alive?

And if she doesn’t think that millions of animals should be killed “for the sake of fashion,” how does she explain all of the silk on her website? Is it because worms’ lives aren’t as valuable as minks’ or foxes’, or is it because Stella McCartney is a hypocrite? I think we all know the answer to that.

We’ve done our fair share of ranting about two well-known animal “rights” charities on this blog so I thought it was time to talk about donating to charity. There are many wonderful charities doing good deeds for people, animals, and the environment and they need the public’s support. There are also quite a few charities that aren’t very effective at what they do, or mislead the public about their activities.

If you are looking to donate money, and you want to feel confident the funds are going to good use, you may want to ask yourself these five questions about a charity before making a donation.

1. What are the primary services they provide? This should really be the primary reason why you are donating to a charity – because you want to help someone or something. But it is important to know exactly what the charity is doing, especially if it isn’t obvious in the name (or the name is misleading). You may also want to investigate if there are different branches or offices you can donate to. For example, the World Wildlife Fund allows you to donate to help the rhinos, tigers, or other species in need. If you have the choice of directing your funds to a specific project, then be sure to choose the one that is most important to you.

2. Are the programs effective? (And how is effectiveness measured?) This will require a bit of detective work but asking a charity outright how they measure their successes and whether they deem recent programs to have been successful is a great start.

3. What percentage of the dollar goes to providing the services and programs, versus administration or fundraising fees? A good benchmark is 60% - if the charity is spending less than 40% on administration and fundraising then the charity can be considered to be using its donations effectively.

4. How are they rated? There are lots of websites rating charities, using different criteria. Two major websites rating charities are Charity Navigator and the AIP’s Web site, Charity Watch (this site requires a $50 per year membership.)

SEE ALSO: WHY I WISH I DIDN'T LOATHE ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS

5. What do the press say about them? A simple online search of your chosen charity can expose you to a lot of positive and negative information about their activities. It’s important to be as objective as possible, which is not always easy. Usually a simple search will help to figure out whether your chosen charity has a good reputation. There are organizations who expose the underhand or misleading activities of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or The Humane Society of the United States - so if you are considering donating to either of these two charities, you may want to do some research at PETA Kills Animals or Humane Watch, first. Or maybe just donate to your local shelter, instead.

Here's some further reading on the topic, if you are looking to dig deeper:

• Forbes: Choosing a charity

New York Times: How to Choose a Charity Wisely

Charity Law Information Program: How to decide which charity to support

The European Union recently announced that products made from seals hunted by Inuit people can continue to be sold in the EU despite the 2009 ban that prevents the importation or sale of all other seal products. It is impossible to imagine a sealing policy that would be more hypocritical and anti-democratic.

Canadian sealing is a sustainable use of a natural resource carried out by licensed, well-trained sealers under the rules and regulations of the government of Canada, which have been developed based upon both population science and humane killing techniques. In 1971 a quota management program was established for the Northwest Atlantic harp seal stock, and the population is estimated to have grown since then from 1.8 million to the 5.9 million, according to the IUCN. World-wide the population is close to 8 million, with "All known stocks ... increasing in number".

Despite the comments of the animal rights groups, the world-wide markets for seal products (food, Omega-3 fatty acids, oil, fur, leather) continue to exist. They exist but are inaccessible because the decades-old animal rights propaganda campaigns have co-opted (bought?) politicians in the EU, the USA, and other countries to deny their citizens their democratic right to choose to buy seal products.

Even in its stronghold of North America, surveys suggest the animal rights philosophy (i.e., no animal use) is adhered to by less than 3 percent of people. And because of this lack of popular support, animal rights groups can only further their agenda by using their multi-million-dollar war chests to lobby politicians to pass laws denying citizens their right of choice: anti-democratic to say the least. Like autocrats throughout history, it seems that these wealthy activist groups don't trust individual citizens to do "the right thing".

Hypocrisy Everywhere

The World Trade Organisation enquiry found that the “seal ban” was against its rules, but in the interest of protecting the “morals” of EU citizens the ban would stand: thus buying into the animal rights propaganda that killing seals is immoral. An interesting decision given that many countries within the EU continue to kill seals legally in the Baltic and North seas.

The USA continues to allow harvesting of northern fur seals in the Pribilof Islands, creating an exemption to its own Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), despite the fact that the IUCN lists the species as "vulnerable" and cautions that the Pribilof stock "has experienced a significant, steep decline in recent years." Yet it bans the importation of Canadian seal products under the same MMPA, despite the fact that the harp seals killed have never, ever been on any reputable list (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, for example) of endangered or threatened species. Hypocrisy reigns supreme.

SEE ALSO: 5 REASONS WHY I SUPPORT THE CANADIAN SEAL HUNT

Inuit "Exemption" Almost Racist

Animal rights groups constantly make pious, politically correct statements that they are not against Inuit sealing. For decades, Inuit organisations (including the Inuit Circumpolar Council, or ICC, which represents Northern Aboriginal communities around the world) has rejected this “exemption” as being meaningless, based in a colonialist mentality, and little short of racism.

Thousands of rural Canadian citizens are directly and indirectly employed in the sealing industry earning a living for their families. Sealing is part of an annual mosaic of income for rural Canadians whose money is derived from a number of individual activities that in total provide a livelihood that enables them to live in their communities. The same thing applies to Canadian farmers, ranchers, trappers, hunters, and so on: the only difference is the species killed. Few rural Canadians have the luxury of a guaranteed annual salary.

SEE ALSO: AMAZING FACTS ABOUT FUR: DRESSING FOR THE ARCTIC

Animal rights groups keep on about a “buyout” for those in the sealing industry. A one-year buyout? A two-year buyout? Or an annual buyout till all those involved have died? For whom? For sealers, plant workers, truckers, diesel suppliers, insurance agents, garment manufacturers, artists, artisans, grocery suppliers, gun and ammunition stores, vehicle sales people? For all or only some of them? Will they pay the many millions involved? No. These American-headquartered multi-million-dollar groups want the Canadian tax payer to subsidize their ridiculous views.

Resource Use Is Not Disneyland

"Baby seals"? The use of the word "baby" is simply an anthropomorphism, the Bambi syndrome, designed to influence and upset urban people who have a total disconnect with the sources of their food, clothing, medicines and other objects of daily use. The seals killed are fully weaned, are independent of their dames, and are on their own to survive or not: this is nature, not Bambi in Disneyland.

Death by gunshot or hakapik is instantaneous as found by innumerable studies by independent vets from Canada, the USA and the EU. The only negative studies have been bought and paid for by animal rights groups. The reality is that no animal-killing is pretty: it is by nature ugly. But pretty and ugly are not synonyms for right and wrong or good and bad. Sealing is simply an outdoor abattoir without the offal problems of land-based abattoirs (dumping it in landfills) because what we cannot use we leave on the ice to return to the eco-system as food for birds, marine mammals, fish and crustaceans: ecologically correct and green.

Travesty of Fiction Over Fact

The reality of the 50 years of animal rights propaganda has been the diminution of the incomes of thousands of Canadian citizens while these American-headquartered groups have collected hundreds of millions of dollars from people who think they are supporting animal care and conservation. One group alone generates contributions close to $100 million annually.

To adapt Winston Churchill's famous turn of phrase, never have so many been so misled by so few for such nefarious reasons. For decades these groups have said nothing new, yet their comments are deemed “newsworthy”. They and their celebrity friends utter ridiculous comments and no journalists challenge them. It's a circus, a travesty of fiction over fact, and proof that hypocrisy reigns supreme. It is media manipulation of the highest order.

Propaganda is an insidious thing and unless countered by a free press prepared to ask the hard questions it will continue ad infinitum. It is time for individuals, politicians and media to remember the immortal line of Pogo: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

The anti-sealing story is the second greatest propaganda campaign of the last 85 years. Democracy is about the right of citizens to choose. History has shown us that when propaganda triumphs, democracy loses.

Nobody in the Canadian sealing industry wants people to buy their products if they do not wish to. Canadian sealers only want all citizens to have their democratic right to choose for themselves to use or not use seal products.

Animal rights is not animal conservation or animal welfare. The goal of animal rights groups like the Humane Society of the US (and its extension, Humane Society International) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, to name but two, is not to end sealing but rather to end man’s use - not just killing, but any use - of all animals for any reason. Read their mission statements. Seals are the tactic not the goal.

Anti-sealing is the epitome of George Orwell’s position in Animal Farm: all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

The animal rights anti-sealing movement may have won some battles but not the war. If it wins the war you will have to look around to see whom among you will be the next victim. The beef, pork, chicken or lamb producers? The trappers, hunters or fur farmers? The clothes manufacturer, shoemaker, auto manufacturer or furniture manufacturer? Anyone who uses animals for any purpose at all? You?

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:

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.

Mink are notorious for going into a murderous feeding frenzy when the opportunity arises; they will bloodily wipe out dozens of hens or ducks within minutes.

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.

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.

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 recent attack on the St. Mary’s, Ontario mink farm occurred on a weekend billed by radical extremists as “a day of direct action”.

Responsibility for the attack was claimed by an anonymous group in a "communiqué" (ALF's preferred term for a press release) posted by the “Animal Liberation Press Office”.

SEE ALSO: AFTER 50 YEARS, FUR TRADE TURNS TABLES ON ACTIVISTS

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.

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".

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?

SEE ALSO: WHY I WISH I DIDN'T LOATHE ANIMAL RIGHTS' ACTIVISTS

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.

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!

We are the people of the fur trade and we will be silent no longer! That is the new rallying cry of our proud and historic trade, and it's long overdue.

It is hard to believe that the debate about fur has been raging for a full half-century – and a bit troubling to realize that I witnessed it all!

And while it is great to see all the fur on fashion runways and in the streets this winter, we still have a way to go to repair the damage caused by 50 years of activist lies, to reassure consumers that fur is produced responsibly and ethically.

Spotlight on Sealing

It was in March 1964, that a film on Radio-Canada, the French-language network of Canada’s public broadcaster, rocketed the northwest Atlantic seal hunt into the media spotlight for the first time. No matter that the shocking scenes of a live seal being poked by a sealer’s knife (“skinned alive”) would later prove to have been staged for the camera. (1)

In the 50 years that followed, the modus operandi of a lucrative new protest industry was refined: shocking images of questionable origin, celebrities to attract media attention, and emotional fund-raising campaigns that generated piles of money to drive more campaigns.

Markets for sealskins were weakened (with a US import ban in 1972 and a partial European ban in 1983), but the newly formed International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) was soon pulling in $6 million annually – more than 3,000 Canadian sealers made risking their lives on the ice floes each Spring. Greenpeace and other groups jumped onto the gravy train, with help from Brigitte Bardot. (2)

In the 1980s – with wild furs more popular than they had been since the Roaring Twenties – the protesters turned their newly-honed media, fund-raising and political skills against trapping (3), a campaign that resulted in the European Union banning jaw-type “leg-hold” traps, in 1997. No matter that traps used in Europe were untested or that other methods used there to control wildlife (e.g., poisoning muskrats in Belgium and the Netherlands) had far-reaching animal-welfare and environmental consequences. Canadian diplomats were told: “Don’t worry about your scientific studies, don’t you understand that this is about politics?”

While campaigns against sealing and trapping continue, the anti-fur focus has now shifted to calls for a ban on fur farming – but the tactics are the same.

Absent: Voice of the Fur Trade

Throughout this debate, one voice was conspicuously absent: the voice of the people whose livelihoods and reputations were being attacked. There are several reasons for this, including the imperatives of modern media, where confrontation is “news” and “celebrities” are irresistible. Hunters, trappers and farmers, moreover, do not live in cities where most journalists are based, so they are rarely heard.

The structure of the fur trade itself – small-scale, decentralized and artisanal – also made it difficult for the industry to muster an effective response. And it didn’t help that those closest to the media and consumers – retail furriers – have little knowledge of production issues. Asking a furrier about trapping standards makes about as much sense as asking a seafood chef to explain fisheries management policy.

All this is about to change. After 50 years of turning the other cheek, the fur trade is finally speaking out more effectively. Under the banner “Truth About Fur”, fur farmers, trappers, biologists and veterinarians are setting the record straight.

Animal Activists Scrambling

The reaction of animal activists is revealing. Used to having the soapbox to themselves, they are scrambling to block or discredit the industry’s voice. I have experienced this personally.

When we refute lies or misinformation on-line, it doesn’t take long before a cyber-bully tries to shut down discussion. Rather than risk having their dogmatic beliefs shaken by facts, they shoot the messenger. Typical attacks include: “He’s paid to write this, don’t listen to him!” “He’s a fur industry troll!” Recently I was called “a sock puppet”.

SEE ALSO: MINK LIBERATION : 5 FACTS THE ALF DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW

I suppose it is better to be a sock puppet than a marionette, which would mean that someone was pulling my strings. But the bad news for these cyber-bullies is that we are not puppets. We are the people of the fur trade, and we will be silent no longer.

If the vicious lies and slanders leveled by activists against the fur trade for the past 50 years were directed at any other group in society, they would be denounced as hate crimes. It’s time that animal activists were exposed for what they are: intolerant bullies with little understanding of modern environmental thinking.

Aboriginal (or other) trappers do not need lessons about respecting nature from urban activists. Mink farmers do not need lessons about caring for animals from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA). The fur trade is not a crime against nature; it is a prime example of “the responsible and sustainable use of renewable natural resources”, a principle supported by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and every other environmental authority. These are some of the facts that are documented by Truth About Fur.

It is encouraging that close to 500 international designers now include fur in their collections, compared with only about 40 in the early 1990s. And it is wonderful to see people of all ages with coyote and fox trim on their parkas this winter. But it is especially satisfying to know that, whatever people choose to wear, the fur trade’s story is finally being told by the people who live it.

* * *

1) Alan Herscovici, Second Nature: The Animal-Rights Controversy (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1985; Stoddart Publishing, 1991), p. 74.

2) Herscovici, p. 70.

3) Herscovici, pp. 117-162.

When you are a passionate fur lover and working with a fur organization, you find yourselves fighting many battles against animal rights activists. I loathe animal rights activists. But I loathe to loathe animal rights activists, because who wants to be against any organization that purports to protect animals’ rights? Don’t we all want animals to have rights that are respected?

The problem with today’s “animal rights” groups is that their arguments are extreme. They aren’t interested in improving the lives of farmed animals, investing in continued development of better trapping techniques, supporting zoos who ensure the survival of endangered species and who participate in valuable breeding programs, working with scientists to ensure that animals used for scientific research are treated the best way possible, or re-housing abandoned animals. Instead, they want to completely ban all animal farming, trapping, zoos, pets, animal testing, leather, meat, fur, and fish. There is no middle ground for them, and I find it really annoying.

Activists don’t understand that farmers, trappers, and all of us involved in the fur industry care deeply about animals and their welfare. Veterinarians and researchers around the world have studied the techniques and systems used in farming and trapping for the fur industry and can attest to the high standards that almost every single farmer and trapper achieve. Many of us love fur because we love the land and animals. We want to preserve the land and animals and we know that in wearing natural fibres and using sustainable natural resources we are contributing towards the protection of the earth, rather than wearing throw away fashion made from non-renewable synthetics. There is no doubt that living off the land with respect to sustainability is the best thing way we could live, and that includes consumption of animals.

When I argue these things with activists, they think it is black and white. Either you kill animals, or you don’t. But it is not that at all. I am vehemently against the poor treatment of animals in farms. I’ve re-evaluated all my opinions on animal use. Personally I am not comfortable with the use of animals for entertainment or sport, including rodeos, dog shows, horse “sports,” and hunting for sport where the “catch” is not used for its skin and/or food. I buy all my meat from countries whose farming standards are extremely high (this is easy because I live in Sweden and the farming standards here are ridiculously high), and I am extremely conscious about sourcing when buying animal products (for example, leather.) In fact, my buying habits, aside from fur, are probably in line with the ways most activists shop themselves, as a large majority of them are not living vegan lives.

So why isn’t there a group to support this conscientious majority? Where are the “animal rights” activists whose mandate is to care for animals and ensure their well being, without pushing an unrealistic agenda that demands the cessation of consumption of all animals and animal by-products around the world?

This is the time of year for giving, and I would love to find a reputable charity whose mandate is to improve the lives of animals, while respecting the fact that they are one of the world’s most valuable resources. The World Wildlife Fund does an excellent job at protecting wildlife while supporting sustainable use principles, but I’d like to see farmed animals getting the respect they deserve too, all around the world. I want to see a group that supports the sustainable use of animals, while protecting them from unnecessary harm. That is what animal rights should be about.