Saturday, January 03, 2009

Use of cat and dog fur banned in EU

According to a report on the BBC site, the use of cat and dog fur has finally been banned across the EU from the start of 2009, after a nine year campaign by a Scottish Tory MEP.

Apparently, more than two million cats and dogs are said to be killed for their skins in China every year. Many shoppers buy goods made with the fur unknowingly, as exporters attach false labels. MEP Mr Struan Stevenson, whose campaign was conducted with the support of the Humane Society International, said the furs were even used to make cat and dog toys which parents bought for their children, not realising that real cats and dogs have been killed and skinned to make the products.

Although I find the whole thing revolting anyway, using it for kid's toys has a particularly macabre irony, especially if the family has pet cats or dogs. It's just one step removed from using fully-fledged taxidermy specimens for toys. A good result for Mr Stevenson though!

5 comments:

deb said...

eeeewwwwwwwww.

Katy Swift said...

What a deeply unpleasant thought! As you say there is a certain irony using real pet fur for toy pets.

Great result.

Helen McCookerybook said...

I saw a woman in Conduit Street wearing a fur tippett complete with tabby cats paws dangling down her back and her chest. She was staring into the window of a posh car showroom, and I was so disgusted I could not speak- I just went up to her and stared at her as hard as I could. I haven't ever forgotten it.

Claire said...

Oh Helen, that's really gross.

Someone at work used to be really anti-fur which I thought was quite radical for a fashion person, but then one day she came in with a furry thing hanging round her neck and eventually she admitted she'd completely switched views and was now a rep for a fur company!! We were gobsmacked, as it's going from one extreme to the other.

Anonymous said...

I seem to recall that the car showroom in Conduit Street is Rolls Royce?