Fur coats, stoles, and hates are popular items among the wealthy and celebrities. They are expensive, which means there is a large economic profit. But what’s the real story behind these fur coats? Well, it all starts when animals are captured in areas such as China and Canada (peta.org).
The first harm comes to the animals when the trappers catch them, which is through steel jaw traps, water-traps (which drown the animal), and with other painful instruments. The methods are highly dangerous and cause a lot of suffering. Next, the animals are beaten, suffocated, electrocuted or even suffocated to death (peta.org).
Many buyers from the United States know that these harmful acts are going on, but to little to stop it, and even less to let their customers know where the fur is actually coming from.
In reality, popular US stores sometimes lie about where their fur is coming and what brand it is. In 2008, the popular department stores Macy’s and Bloomingdales were under speculation and eventually a lawsuit was filed about the mislabeling of fur garments (The Humane Society). The problem was that the fur garments sold to the customers did not have the correct labeling. Macy’s and Bloomingdales worked with the Humane society to make the labels more clear and show buyers exactly what they were buying. The consequences of the new labels mostly affect the companies themselves, because it forced the companies to purchase higher quality fur as opposed to buying lower quality and labeling it as high quality. There was not a large profit loss from the new labeling since the cliental of these department stores is generally upper-class.
The ethical question in this situation was the mislabeling of the fur. That action shows that the companies want to ignore where the fur actually came from, which was most likely a starving animal that was killed in a slow and painful manner.
Sources:
peta.org
humanesociety.org
By Margot Waldron
No comments:
Post a Comment