I don’t wear leather, wool or other animal skins either because I think that all those industries involve inherent suffering and environmental damage, but fur is kind of in a league of its own in terms of cruelty, wastefullness and deception and so I think retailers should make an extra effort to eliminate real fur from their stores.

The meat of the animals killed for fur is almost always disgarded and it takes about 40 mink to make one full length fur coat. And unlike the livestock industry (in America at least), the fur industry is not regulated at the national level. The US Humane Slaughter Act does not apply to fur-bearing animals, so animals raised on fur farms in America can be killed by any method, usually electrocution, gassing and poisoning. And in China, which has one of the highest number of mink and fox farms in the world, there are absolutely no animal welfare regulations and the animals are often skinned while still alive and conscious. Another aspect that makes fur so cruel is that wild animals such as mink and fox are more ill-suited for captivity than animals that have been domesticated for a long time. There’s no such thing as a “free range” fur farm. On every fur farm, the animals are kept in tiny cages. So please be vigilant this shopping season and don’t buy any item that may have real fur!

I don’t wear the skins of animals unless I eat that kind of animal – so no rabbit and such. I do wear leather and shearling though.

I don’t wear fur and have never owned anything that has faux fur on it. But, my daughter would like a pair of boots that contain faux fur on the outside-how can we be sure that it truly is faux fur?

Stop buying fur in general, if the number of people in the world ignored and boycotted buying furs, after a while.. the industries would no longer sell the furs, meaning less animals would not suffer, and be asbused and kept in captivity. Buy not buying fur, you may be saving one more life.