EU Halts 'Evil' Trade in Cat and Dog Fur

Cat and dog fur imported from China in designer clothes and novelty products has been banned by the EU.

As many as 24 cats are slaughtered to provide one coat, though by the time the item reaches Britain it is often labelled Fake Fur so the shopper does not know.

MEPs voted to outlaw imports following eight years of campaigning against the "evil trade" by celebrities including Heather Mills and Rick Wakeman.

The ban is expected to save the lives of up to two million cats and dogs in China, a prime source for pelts which may be stripped from the animals while still alive.

Video of the slaughter was a key part of the crusade by Miss Mills, who visited the European Parliament twice to press for action, and encouraged Hollywood stars to join calls for a ban.

Sir Paul McCartney used a TV interview last year to demand a boycott on Chinese fur products and on the Beijing Olympics in 2008 until the trade was banned.

Conservative Euro MP Struan Stevenson is travelling to Beijing to ask the authorities to stamp out the trade now that markets in European countries are about to be closed off. He said: "There are still many shoppers in the UK and the rest of Europe blissfully unaware that the items they buy are actually made from the skins of cats and dogs.

"Slaughter of these animals is horrific, with cats strangled outside their cages as other cats look on and dogs noosed with metal wires are slashed across the groin until they bleed to death."

Cat and dog fur appears in EU shops as coats, novelty hair bows for children, toy figurines, linings for boots and gloves and even as homeopathic arthritis aids.

Yeah, and probably kill 4 million rabbits to make up for that. It is extremely sad other cultures use what we consider ‘pet animals’ this way. I have house rabbits that are wonderful pets, and China is the #1 killer of domesticated (ie not wild but pet rabbits) rabbits in the world.

It’s often interesting that dog and cat people are happy for my support when these kinds of articles come out about their pets (as I love dogs and cats but can’t have them due to bad allergies), but they don’t seem to feel the same outrage when it’s about MY pet animals.

Hopefully another market for cat and dog fur doesn’t open up somewhere else.

It depends who you ask. I think it is very sad because domestic rabbits do not have a fear of man. They have no fighting chance to live like a wild rabbit if your intent is to kill them. They don’t have a healthy fear of man (that is a predator to them).

You can substitute whatever your favorite pet animal is in to your question and I think you will have a better viewpoint of where I am coming from. I would assume you’re probably a dog person being a ‘country boy’, let me then say:

Why would you be bothered about people using dog and cat fur in coats and other products? What’s the difference between killing a wild dingo versus a domesticated dog?

BTW: I’ve heard black labs are delicious. /sarc

I thought about your question a bit more.

Why it bothers me. It’s also so unsportsmanlike as to be completely unfair. It’s like the difference between a taking down a coyote versus taking down a domestic dog. The dog would let you come right up to it, probably lick your hand, you step back and shoot it. You use the domestication and trust of the animal to gain the advantage and kill it. Difference is, people say “How cruel” when it’s a dog, and like you, “so what?” if it’s a pet rabbit - not YOUR favorite pet, but it is to others. I don’t have dogs but I empathize with abused dogs and owners who lose their dogs under tragic circumstances, yet there doesn’t seem to be much empathy from the dog folks when it’s pets other than theirs.

So I basically got two arguments from what you said:

1. Killing domesticated animals is ‘sad’ because they have no fear of man and won’t protect themselves.
2. Killing domesticated animals is ‘unfair’ because undomesticated animals can protect themselves or run away.

Mostly the same but a little different.

First let me say I love dogs, you it that on the head. I had to shoot a stray once though because several people on my street thought it had rabies…and I felt bad about it.

But by no means do I feel the need to stop other people from killing domesticated animals. We’ve bred several for food and in Asia there are breeds of dogs and cats bred for the same reason. The Guinea Pig was specifically bred for food (ugh).

I’m no cultural relativist; in fact I’m a moral objectivist. The fact is though, domesticated or not, animals do not have any rights, only people do. Because of that, we have the right to treat them as any other property. What we do to them may or may not be nice but as animals with no moral standing it’s impossible to act morally or immorally toward any animal.

Well you got it partly right.

What I am saying is that it is sad to kill domestic animals when that particular domestic animal is regarded as primarily being a pet or companion-type animal. In our culture dogs and cats are household pets, and so are domesticated rabbits. Rabbit owners get less sympathy than other pet owners because partly of the fact they think ‘it’s just a rabbit’ and the fact rabbits fall across multiple categories of acceptable uses in America.

For these domesticated animals that fall into the pet category, and have no fear of man and would not expect their owner to ever turn on them, yes, I say that it is unfair - insofar as they trust you and depend on their owners and it makes it that much easier for an owner to betray that trust if they would want to kill them. And I am not talking about mercy killing, don’t try to bring up tangential arguments. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Nowhere do I ever say I would force people not to do this however. All I am pointing out is that it is sad to see animals we regard as pets being bred and killed in other cultures.

You are correct that animals do not have rights. However your statement that (therefore) it’s impossible to act moral or immoral towards any animal is completely 100 percent wrong. There is such a thing as animal cruelty, and there are laws that provide protection for animals, even though they don’t have ‘rights’. You can’t just light your dog on fire if you want. First it is immoral whether or not the dog has ‘rights’. As a living thing humans have decided that animals deserve protections and certain levels of care. There are people convicted of neglect, abuse, and cruelty to their animals or others’ animals. So you are totally dead wrong on that count.

What I do say is that god allows us to use animals as we deem necessary, but that we are not to be unnecessarily cruel in our treatment of them. That means not abusing them, taking care of them well, getting them medical attention when needed, as they are your property and you are responsible for them. I have heard more than one person say if you want to know what kind of person a man/woman is, look at how they take care of their animals. The things that are completely dependent upon them.

That also means quick and hopefully the least painful ways of killing them, if those animals are to be killed. Who can argue about that? They are God’s creation too, and He loves them and doesn’t want them to be treated cruelly. You can see even the sacrifice animals were never mentioned to have been treated badly beforehand, they killed them very quickly. Abusing animals is not good Christian stewardship of what God has given you to be responsible for.

You just read my statement with your viewpoint already fixed. I wasn’t talking about rights or banning killings or anything like that. I merely said it’s sad to see dogs and cats used like this in other cultures that do not regard them as pet animals. Man, sometimes people here are so quick to want to pull a friggin’ trigger on someone. It’s getting REAL REAL old.

Cattle are not regarded by the vast majority of Americans as ‘domestic pet’ animals. yes we have domesticated them but not for the purposes of being a companion animal. If you are saying we’re supposed to look at a domestic steer is the same thing as a pet dog, I think you’ve just lost the argument (and your sanity).

And I am sad at the fact we have to kill a lot of them so that we can have good meat to eat. I am grateful that I do not have to be the one killing them. I am grateful that I can eat good meat and stay healthy. I thank God for the animals we have to kill so that we can live. But it still makes me sad. It’s a sad fact of life. But it has to continue.

What strikes me as even sadder is when I see ‘domestic pet’ animals - that most Americans regard as pets/companion animals - being used the same way food/fur animals are. You say that that you would not be upset about it. I say it makes me sad. That’s all I am saying. No more, no less.

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