When it comes to the ethical treatment of animals I am a fan. I am not however a fanatic. PETA is not an organization I support. They have far too high of a kill rate (PETA Killed More than 90% of the Animals in its Care in 2007) and the injustices toward certain breeds of dogs borderlines genocide. Ingrid Newkirk, president of PETA, officially advocates the euthanasia of pitbull dogs brought in to animal shelters, as well as other breeds of dogs deemed “violent” without consideration for temperament. People should really take a close look at the organizations they support and make sure that their values align with who they are sending money to or advocated for.

I was a strict vegetarian for about 5 years of my life and still choose not to eat red meat. This choice is more to do with not enjoying it than anything else and “giving it up” was not really a sacrifice for me. I think that if it is a sacrifice to give up meat for you, then you shouldn’t do it. Our bodies have a way of telling us what we need and what we are deficient in and ignoring that seems a little absurd.

I own a leather jacket. When people think that is cruel and they have leather patches on their jeans or leather shoes I wonder if they think that the cow it was taken from is happily walking around with a chunk cut out of its hide. Again know what you support and why. A little leather is really no different than a whole coat. I also have had my coat since I graduated highschool. I take very good care of it and plan to have it the rest of my life. No need to waste.

 

I adopted a grey hound. Her name is Mona. She is a retired racing dog. I feel a little uncomfortable when people compliment me for “rescuing her from a cruel life.” I have personally never seen a grey hound race, but I find it hard to believe that any intelligent dog owner who is hoping their animal would win a race would mistreat their animal. Grey hounds are naturally “skinny” or built slim and I feel many misunderstanding have come about because of lack of knowledge on the breed. People see my grey hound and say things like “poor thing they must have starved her.” I have owned Mona for over 3 years now. She is a fantastic pet and in great health. Her weight is absolutely normal for her breed and she eats two meals a day. Now I also do not believe she was treated like a pet. More like a farm animal would be treated and crated too often, but mistreated is a bit of a stretch.

 

Ok now that I have given a bit of background I will say that I think chinchilla fur coats are cruel. Yes I know I may have bias because of the 8 lovely chins that I have the pleasure of sharing a home with, but even by standards of fur farming business, the treatment of the chinchillas is especially cruel.  A mid length chinchilla fur coat takes up to 60 chinchilla pelts to make and a full length fur takes up to 200 chinchillas. It seems a very high life sacrifice for one coat. The way in which chinchillas are killed to produce the fur is also particularly cruel. Until recently it was most commonly carried out by electrocution of the anus and genitals of the live animal.

 

In 1994, films of genital electrocution taken on chinchilla farms resulted in a Sonoma Valley, California, farm being charged with cruelty to animals.  Prosecutors documented that, according to veterinarians, the animals suffer during this process, in which the chinchilla is held upside down by the tail and electrodes are placed in the ear and in the anal canal or penis; a switch is then pulled to electrocute.  According to guidelines established by the American Veterinary Medical Association, such euthanasia should be carried out only on unconscious animals.

Source http://www.endangeredspecieshandbook.org/trade_chinchillas.php

 

Those states who still offer this as a form or capital punishment should take note that we even found this cruel for small furry animals a few years back.

Today snapping their necks while they are fully conscious is the most popular ways of killing a chinchilla for fur. I am not saying that there are not more civilized fur breeders out there who make efforts to minimize suffering of the animals. Some chinchilla fur breeders  use lethal injection and other methods to minimize stress and suffering and I am happy to hear they are at least making efforts, because in the end of the day it is not their fault that they are killing hundreds of animals in order to make one snazzy expensive coat ranging around $10,000-$15,000 and above. It is because there is a market for it. I think that the women and men out there walking around wearing hundreds of chins are not cruel people, they are probably as clueless to what went into making the coats as the women at the dog park commenting on my “skinny” grey hound Mona. Yes I am against chinchilla fur coats, but I am more against throwing paint on someone’s coat and making a horrible scene. Some education can go a long way and sometimes politely mentioning something or handing out an informational (non-scare tactic) flyer is far more effective then shouting and ranting.

If you are however into gore, be my guest and check out the PETA video link below that shows how chins are killed at a fur farm, I personally couldn’t stomach it. I do not have the stomach for torture.  http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/video.asp?video=chinchilla_mov_final&Player=wm