Fur Thread! (No, not that kind... )

[Snowbell]

The meat of animals that are slaughtered for fur are mainly wasted, so I'm against it in general.

Wool I'm completely fine with, lambskin and leather I'm less comfortable with but I'll let it slide since it means more of the animal is being used and less wasted.

I'm also fine with vintage fur items, why let it go to waste if the sacrifice has already been made?

Personally I avoid leather, lambskin, rabbitskin and fur clothing/products. It's not an industry I want to support

 

[Aurora Firestorm]

I'm going to be a total ass and skip all the other opinions here.

I like fur. I wear fur. I buy fur. I plan to buy rabbit skins to make things out of fur. I have killed a squirrel and taken its fur. I have zero beef with the concept of wearing fur.

This falls into the category of "why are we questioning things humans have done out of necessity for an eternity?" in my mind. Like eating meat, for example. No, we no longer need to wear fur. Just because it's now an option and not a mandate doesn't mean that it becomes a bad thing, though.

I don't advocate animal torture. I am entirely against causing horrible amounts of needless suffering. Killing an animal swiftly and cleanly is not torture; it's the way the food chain works, and what's the big difference if we kill it for fur or food? (I also advocate using the entire animal, even if it's just grinding up the meat from the fur trade for dog food.) I don't consider the idea of raising animals on a farm to be torture, either. Now, it's arguable that the *current* fur trade uses unethical methods to raise and contain their animals, but that's not what we're debating. We're arguing about whether the concept of raising animals to kill for their fur, or going and hunting animals just to take their fur, is ethical.

Well, of course it is.

Edit: Oh yeah, lay off endangered animals, or at least farm them instead of shooting wild ones. If you manage to raise enough tigers to make a tiger fur farm, more power to you.

 

[lSHaDoW-FoXl]

While fur certainly isn't my personal taste in clothing I have no problems with those that do.
The whole anti-fur stance just seems foolish to me even more so if the animal killed was used beyond just for it's fur. Are we are be to such a-holes that we should shun our ancestors for wearing the very furs that they would have most certainly perished without?

I think people who take these positions are just looking for a place to feel morally superior to others.

It's foolish to be against an industry that doesn't serve any purpose and kills millions of animals on a yearly basis? No, you're wrong. Even if fur is justifiable, it's not foolish getting upset about animal cruelty and an out dated form of fashion that involves the suffering of countless animals. I love on you berate those that are against fur based around the fact that our ancestors had to wear fur. If you're going to look down at someone, you need to learn the basics from a professional like me. You're going to need a better reason to berate these people. Because you you see, I'm against fur. But not just that, I happen to love my great grandparents very much. And trust me babe, it's not just because of their cookies.

It's quite simple, actually. I don't get pissed off at them and shun them like an asshole because I understand that they needed it. Allow me to me to emphasis - because they HAD to wear it where as today we don't. Really, we fucking don't. Today people wear it because of some fucked up fashion/social symbol that's not even needed. It's wasteful, it's expensive, and above all, it doesn't have any place in today's world. It's no less of an anachronism than a type writer. Seriously, this bull shit about fur coats should have stopped the moment we started selling coats at not even a quarter of the price (and minus the 20 dead animals) of a fur coat.

I'm pretty fucking stuck up *well, I am online anyway* but that's not not quite why I'm against fur. I'm against fur because it pisses me off, plain and simple. I believe that people should have the right to do whatever they want, up until it serves no purpose and causes needless suffering. Fur breaks both of these rules.

If you think fur is right, maybe you can go ahead and tell me your thoughts on it after some serial killer skins you alive just because he'd thought it'd look nice.

 

[lSHaDoW-FoXl]

I'm going to be a total ass and skip all the other opinions here.

I like fur. I wear fur. I buy fur. I plan to buy rabbit skins to make things out of fur. I have killed a squirrel and taken its fur. I have zero beef with the concept of wearing fur.

This falls into the category of "why are we questioning things humans have done out of necessity for an eternity?" in my mind. Like eating meat, for example. No, we no longer need to wear fur. Just because it's now an option and not a mandate doesn't mean that it becomes a bad thing, though.

I don't advocate animal torture. I am entirely against causing horrible amounts of needless suffering. Killing an animal swiftly and cleanly is not torture; it's the way the food chain works, and what's the big difference if we kill it for fur or food? (I also advocate using the entire animal, even if it's just grinding up the meat from the fur trade for dog food.) I don't consider the idea of raising animals on a farm to be torture, either. Now, it's arguable that the *current* fur trade uses unethical methods to raise and contain their animals, but that's not what we're debating. We're arguing about whether the concept of raising animals to kill for their fur, or going and hunting animals just to take their fur, is ethical.

Well, of course it is.

Edit: Oh yeah, lay off endangered animals, or at least farm them instead of shooting wild ones. If you manage to raise enough tigers to make a tiger fur farm, more power to you.

It's 'arguable'? No, it most certainly is. We're leaving the lives of these animals in the hands of BUSINESSES. They don't take responsibility nor follow ethics, and they're never going to. Animals get skinned alive, animals get thrown in small cages, and animals get underfed. There's nothing 'arguable' about it. They're treated like shit and they're killed in a horrific manner. The end. And while you're paying thousands of dollars to support this irredeemable and awful industry the people that are actually doing all the work - as barbaric as they are - are getting paid in pennies. I can use a countless amount of arguments against fur, but I don't even need to because the ethics involved alone speak of what the fur industry stands for and why it needs to be completely destroyed.

I'm not going to spend too much time arguing against you because because clearly the price tag didn't stop you from killing those animals. But, what I will do is offer three points outside of the insane amount of cruelty that goes on.

1. It's an anachronism

Fur was right at a time, but it's wrong now. The industry is holding us back.

2. Dishonesty.

The champion of the fur trade is China. And given their track record with human welfare and animal welfare alone I think it speaks volumes of why no one should follow their example. But I digress. It's dishonest. I remember reading up about China selling fur as faux - fur. It seems their trade is so vile that even they can't sell it without being dishonest.

3. The People

Not just the animals are treated like shit. The people doing it are too. Thank you for supporting this industry.

 

[Aris Khandr]

Now a fur lined capes I can get behind, but I'd only wear one if I'd strangled the ocelot myself.

"Please don't strangle me."

 

[Casual Shinji]

My dad had a mink and fox farm and I never saw the harm of it, but that's probably because I grew up in that environment.

One thing I can say for certain, any decent fur farm treats its animals like queens. It might seem morbid, but the better you treat the animals the better the fur will end up looking. And mink and fox fur is generally a luxery item, so any potential buyer will see when animals are mistreated because the resulting fur will look like shit. Skinning a mink or a fox that's dead is already a tough job. Skinning one that's alive is impossible without seriously destroying the value of the fur you're trying to sell.

I don't even understand how one could skin a mink or a fox alive. I don't know if anyone here has ever tried to catch one of these animals with their hands, but without a sturdy pair of gloves your mits will be shred to pieces. I know that these practices do occur in countries like China, but it didn't on the farm my family had, and I'll be damned if we were the only fur farm in the world that treated its live stock humainly.

So yeah, bring on the red paint.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Meh, I've never really had a stance on fur and animal skin products. I care much more for humans who are innocently dying, because really life is way too short to care about sone fox halfway across the world that would probably have died of natural, painful causes. At least in fur the animals are mostly treated really good to keep the fur good, which you can't say for a dying child in Africa.

 

[lSHaDoW-FoXl]

My dad had a mink and fox farm and I never saw the harm of it, but that's probably because I grew up in that environment.

One thing I can say for certain, any decent fur farm treats its animals like queens. It might seem morbid, but the better you treat the animals the better the fur will end up looking. And mink and fox fur is generally a luxery item, so any potential buyer will see when animals are mistreated because the resulting fur will look like shit. Skinning a mink or a fox that's dead is already a tough job. Skinning one that's alive is impossible without seriously destroying the value of the fur you're trying to sell.

I don't even understand how one could skin a mink or a fox alive. I don't know if anyone here has ever tried to catch one of these animals with their hands, but without a sturdy pair of gloves your mits will be shred to pieces. I know that these practices do occur in countries like China, but it didn't on the farm my family had, and I'll be damned if we were the only fur farm in the world that treated its live stock humainly.

So yeah, bring on the red paint.

I'm more accustomed to fire. Being the rabid animal rights activist I am I've contributed three posts to this thread, amounting to 'Fur farming is evil'. I do, however, have one question, how along ago was it your family did these things, exactly?

 

[Casual Shinji]

My dad had a mink and fox farm and I never saw the harm of it, but that's probably because I grew up in that environment.

One thing I can say for certain, any decent fur farm treats its animals like queens. It might seem morbid, but the better you treat the animals the better the fur will end up looking. And mink and fox fur is generally a luxery item, so any potential buyer will see when animals are mistreated because the resulting fur will look like shit. Skinning a mink or a fox that's dead is already a tough job. Skinning one that's alive is impossible without seriously destroying the value of the fur you're trying to sell.

I don't even understand how one could skin a mink or a fox alive. I don't know if anyone here has ever tried to catch one of these animals with their hands, but without a sturdy pair of gloves your mits will be shred to pieces. I know that these practices do occur in countries like China, but it didn't on the farm my family had, and I'll be damned if we were the only fur farm in the world that treated its live stock humainly.

So yeah, bring on the red paint.

I'm more accustomed to fire.

So... am... I!

 

[Padwolf]

I misread this as "Fun Thread"!

I don't like it, but I won't enforce my views too strongly. Just don't get fur from endangered animals.

 

[MasochisticAvenger]

Sorry, I thought since I said they, meaning killing animal threads, it would be clear I was talking about them specifically. I will try to be clearer about that in the future . Vegetarianism threads particularly irk me, because they never say anything new. The people creating them often act like they are presenting some new profound argument, but it always boils down to "animals are living creates, and you are killing them for your own greedy desires".

Which is only really an argument if the other person doesn't say "yes, and?". I don't think there are many carnivores who aren't aware that what they're consuming was once a living creature, but I'm not sure why we're meant to care. There are creatures out there who'd be happy to eat us, and if the roles were reverse we'd probably be the creatures being farmed for our meat. I don't think that doing what comes naturally to us is necessarily evil.

Though I will say I believe the whole argument of "It's alright as long as the animal was killed in a humane manner" is kind of ridiculous. I mean, really? It makes that much of a difference if the animal didn't suffer before it was killed? I don't know, that always struck me as kind of weird.

Well, some of these animals are subjected to pretty horrific conditions before they're slaughtered. I don't disapprove of eating meat - in fact, much to the chagrin of my ex-girlfriend I'm a deeply comitted carnivore - but I'm not in favour of uneccessary cruelty either.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning cruelty to animals under any circumstances. Just that I've never quite gotten the justification that eating meat/wearing fur is acceptable only if the animals used were killed in a humane manner. It just always comes off as a pointless justification to make people feel better about themselves.

 

[manic_depressive13]

-snip-

Wow, dude... your initial comment was pretty bad but this one was so nonsensical it almost made me puke a bit.

OT: I think wearing fur is pretty appalling. I'm not fond of leather but I tolerate it and can understand why it is practical, if not necessary, to use it. Fur, on the other hand, is just sick.

 

[lSHaDoW-FoXl]

My dad had a mink and fox farm and I never saw the harm of it, but that's probably because I grew up in that environment.

One thing I can say for certain, any decent fur farm treats its animals like queens. It might seem morbid, but the better you treat the animals the better the fur will end up looking. And mink and fox fur is generally a luxery item, so any potential buyer will see when animals are mistreated because the resulting fur will look like shit. Skinning a mink or a fox that's dead is already a tough job. Skinning one that's alive is impossible without seriously destroying the value of the fur you're trying to sell.

I don't even understand how one could skin a mink or a fox alive. I don't know if anyone here has ever tried to catch one of these animals with their hands, but without a sturdy pair of gloves your mits will be shred to pieces. I know that these practices do occur in countries like China, but it didn't on the farm my family had, and I'll be damned if we were the only fur farm in the world that treated its live stock humainly.

So yeah, bring on the red paint.

I'm more accustomed to fire. Being the rabid animal rights activist I am I've contributed three posts to this thread, amounting to 'Fur farming is evil'. I do, however, have one question, how along ago was it your family did these things, exactly?

Do you think normal farming is evil too?

I'm guessing you do, I just want to get a handle on you.

And if you're actually insinuating that you'd set people alight because they own a farm. Well.... I can't really say anything about that which wouldn't get me a ban.

Captcha thingy: vegan zombie wants grains!

Hilarious and relevant. You've one uped yourself solve media, well done... well done.

Actually, I'm not against normal farms. How they take care of their animals is usually far more pleasant than that of a factory farm or that of a fur farm. My understanding has always been that eating meat is still relevant in our society and there's no point in going on a crusade against it. Fur farming, however, has outlived its purpose. At a time it was acceptable, but that time is long past. Oh, and I'm not a vegan. I'm a vegetarian. I have no qualms with exploitation; I've got qualms with needless suffering. If only because we're all just being exploited anyway.

 

[DRes82]

Fur is a product no different from meat. It's no less necessary to our survival than meat.

Not quite sure which century you're living in where fur is 'necessary for our survival'. Its certainly not necessary for my own.

Fur is completely unnecessary, as a matter of fact. On top of that, its pretty creepy to see someone draped in animal skins these days. Unless you're at a Renaissance fair or something.