HOT TOPICS: QUESTIONS AND FACTS ABOUT FUR

Question 6: Who are the animal activist groups and what do they really want?

• The most prominent of these organizations, PETA & HSUS, would like you to believe that they are ‘’charitable’’ organizations, raising funds to protect animals. They really function more like well-oiled propaganda and fundraising machines investing millions in media campaigns, paying handsome salaries to their executives and spending very little on animal shelters. (see: www.petakillsanimals.com). They often use extremist (and sometimes terrorist-like) tactics to get media attention and influence public opinion. They seek to abolish ALL use of animals, even for food or vital medical research. They oppose using leather, honey or seeing-eye dogs. They believe that keeping pets is a form of “slavery”.
• They see fur as an easy target because it is perceived to be relatively expensive and glamorous -- and therefore can be caricatured as a “frivolous” luxury for a small group of rich people. In reality the fur industry is made up of very small family-run businesses, artisans, trappers and farmers who are not media-savvy like PETA or the HSUS, and don’t have the financial means to compete with the multi-million dollar budgets of the lucrative new “protest industry’’.
• While it is totally legitimate to have differing personal views on the use of animals, whether in our diets or for the clothes we wear, is it really fair to single out one industry and attack the livelihoods of thousands of people, who, like everybody else, have families to raise and bills to pay? Is it really fair to attack the fur industry in a society where 97% of the population eats meat and uses animal products everyday?