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We advocate on all animal protection and exploitation issues, including experimentation, factory farming, rodeos, breeders and traveling animal acts.

Animal Defenders of Westchester
P.O. Box 205
Yonkers, NY 10704

Campaigns
Stop Fur and Animal Skin Production and Sales

Don't contribute to animal cruelty

Published in THE JOURNAL NEWS, Mar. 22, 2003:

I recently stood in line behind a shopper at an end-of-season sale.

As she handed over her purchase to the register she suddenly asked if the coat's collar was real fur. When told it was, she hesitated before finally making the purchase. When I objected, there was a cacophony of rationales - "Well, we eat them...these were bred for slaughter...they died of old age..."

I am 100 percent certain this woman wouldn't have bought a full-length fur coat. But for some reason, the reality of what they are wearing is lessened when only a few inches of fur is present.

But here is what you've contributed to by "just" buying a coat with fur trim on the collar: No, they don't die of old age; animals caught in a leg-hold trap break bones and teeth trying to chew out of the trap. He can lay there for days until a trapper checks the trap, at which point the animal is stomped or bludgeoned to death.

Many non-target animals are smashed in these traps as well. "Ranched" animals live in tiny fecal-encrusted wire cages.

Some are so inbred as to born blind, deaf and crippled. They are killed by having their necks broken, by being electrocuted anally, by being poisoned with strychnine or carbon dioxide. Is it worth it?

Many countries have already either outlawed fur farms or simply chosen to abandon selling fur entirely. Please remember the next time you're shopping that you have the power to make a difference.

Kiley Blackman

Yonkers

The writer is spokesperson,
Animal Defenders of Westchester

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