GENITAL ELECTROCUTION AND OTHER HORRORS OF FUR FARMS
Row after row of tiny, wire mesh cages, stacked four high and strung about 25 in a row; chinchillas peering watchfully through the wires; a rack of pelts hanging on a far wall; and, except for a radio playing softly in one corner of the room, a morguish hush. That's the scene two PETA investigators found at a fur "factory" farm secluded in a quiet, snow-covered town in Michigan.
PETA's Research and Investigations (R & I) Department sent two undercover teams into fur "farms" in five states. Our investigators witnessed not only how animals live, but also how they die in the seedy world of fur farming. One method they documented has never been made public before; genital electrocution.
LITTLE ANIMALS, BIG SUFFERING
During genital electrocution, the killer attaches an alligator clamp to the animal's ear and another to her labia and flips a switch, or plugs the wire into the wall socket, sending a jolt of electricity through her skin down the length of her body. She jerks and stiffens. But, according to PETA's biologist, Leslie Gerstenfeld-Press, although the electrical current stops the
heart, it does not kill her; in many cases the animals remain conscious. The electrical current causes unbearable muscle pain, at the same time working as a paralyzing agent, preventing the victim from screaming or fleeing. A chinchilla farmer who uses genital electrocution told our investigators that he leaves the clips on "for one or two minutes" to make sure the heart doesn't start up again, but that sometimes animals revive - those who do
remember the pain. Recently, in front of our investigators, one rancher unplugged the animal, listened to the heart and said, "Nope, still beatingmetimes you'll get one that'll argue with you." The chinchillas, like all animals, do not go willingly; although they make no noise as they wait- held upside down as the rancher attaches the clips- their whiskers and mouths tremble constantly until the electrical charge freezes all movement. For the benefit of our investigators, the farmer laid the animal's body on a table, although normally, he said, he would just hang
the animal by the tail from a clip.
For small animals, neck "snapping" or "popping" is easy and cheap. The owner of one farm R & I visited wraps the fingers of one hand around the neck of the chinchilla, grasps the lower body with the other hand, and jerks the animal's vertebra out of the socket, breaking the neck. Neck snapping takes just a second, but for "about five minutes" afterward, according to one rancher, the animal jerks and twitches. It might take two minutes for an animal to become brain-dead from cervical dislocation; in the meantime, as shown on our investigator's video, she or he kicks and squirms.
No federal law regulates the killing of animals raised for fur. The methods very from one company to another, but all emphasize concern for the pelt, not for the animal. It takes 100 chinchilla pelts to make just one full-length coat.
FOXES IN BOXES
Minks are the fur farm animal of choice, with 2.7 million pelts produced in the United States in 1992, down from 3.3 million in 1990, not counting the animals who die of disease or "mishaps" before they can be pelted. Ranchers also breed foxes, beavers, and rabbits for fur. In the U.S., fur farms produced approximately 50,000 fox fur pelts last year.
Some of them came from a place not far from the Eastern Seaboard where dead animals and animal parts litter the grounds in various stages of decay. "Breeder" foxes peer intently from their cages, their view of the world chopped into rectangles created by the mesh wiring. Their food containers are rusty cans, feces is piled up to the boot-rim height, and the buildings groan in disrepair. The owner showed our investigators a wheelbarrow full of blood and skinned minks' bodies and, not far off, two cages dripping with the corpses of foxes newly killed and skinned. One fox's body, stripped of fur except around the ankles, lay in the dirt. The smell of decay permeated the place.A
OTHER PROBLEMS
Cruelty to animals is just one fur farm abuse; another is damage to the environment worldwide. For example, a recent study of Finnish fur farms revealed that in Finland alone, fur farms produce more than 150 million pounds of animal droppings a year. (The figure was much higher in the mid-1980's, when there were about three times as many animals on Finnish fur farms.) High
in phosphorous, animal wastes can pollute nearby waterways and contribute to oxygen depletion, killing fishes. Despite warnings about the damage to the environment, few farmers make any effort to filter sewage from fur farms before allowing it to be washed into nearby rivers and streams.
Fur farms can cause air pollution as well, primarily because of the ammonia that emanates from droppings. Accounting for five percent of all ammonia emissions in Finland, animals on fur farms there contribute about 1,500 tons a year.
Fur farming also represents astronomical energy consumption, largely because of the production, transportation, and distribution of feed. According to the Ford Motor Company, it takes 312,700 more British Thermal Units (BTUs) to manufacture a trapped fur coat than a fake fur, and 7,854,500 more BTUs to
produce a ranched fur coat than a fake one.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Many furriers lead potential customers to believe that "ranch-raised" animals lived blissfully and died peacefully. It is important to continue to counter their claims through animal rights literature, letters to newspapers and magazines, and word of mouth. Don't let a fur-wearer pass you on the street, in the store, or anywhere without informing her or him of the cruelties
involved in fur production. The animals are counting onus to speak up for them.
If you have experience, patience, ample space, and the desire to share your life and love with four rescued chinchillas for as long as they live, contact PETA today. Please be advised that we do have very stringent adoption standards, and due to transportation stress, we can only consider homes in states around Maryland.
Fur: There's No Excuse, PETA's Special Fur Action Pack
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals- 501 Front Street - Norfolk, VA. 23510 - 757-622-PETA (7382)
