Fur Trade is Ending

 

25 Years ago we bought out 56 bobcat and lynx kittens from the Fur Farm in LeCenter, MN because when I learned cats were being killed for their fur, I thought I could put a stop to that.  (Those kittens were about the size and color that Pearlie is in this photo taken today with Howie)  That led to saving 28 bobcats and lynx the next year, 22 bobcats and lynx the next year and with that the fur farms in America were no longer killing cats for their fur.  Tiger Lilly the Bobcat is the last of those cats.  The following 2 years we were working on emptying the fur farm cages in Canada.  Apollo the Siberian Lynx is the last of those cats. 

 

Just this year scores of clothing designers and retailers around the world have banned fur from their products—including Coach, Burberry, Versace, Chanel, Diane von Furstenberg, Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo, Donna Karan, Armani, Hugo Boss and Gucci, to name just a few. Even major cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles are banning the sale of fur outright.  Indiana and Ohio have yielded to public pressure to scale back bobcat hunting and other states are seeing similar changes coming.

 

Today I woke up thinking about that and the first email I opened turned out to be PETA talking about ending the fur trade permanently for all animals, especially rabbits.  That was even more coincidental because I’d been laying in bed thinking about how PETA gets a bad rap, even in animal lover circles, because ignorant people believe what the bad guys tell them without doing any research on their own.  That’s the same way so many of our supporters used to talk about us, until they learned who we really are, so I was thinking to do a LIVE Facebook cast today talking about that.  It’s pouring rain and there is a tornado watch in the area, so this will have to do. 

 

I remember back in the 90s PETA was saying some mean things about us, that weren’t true, but it was understandable that they would suspect us of animal abuse because they knew back yard breeders and dealers in big cats were bad news.  They had no way to know that we were different.  When I was alerted that “PETA is here!” I didn’t run them off.  I welcomed them.  I figured they would actually like us if they knew us, so I introduced them to the cats, told their rescue stories and more importantly offered to take them anywhere and show them anything they wanted to see.  Suspicion grows in the absence of transparency.  It was my first experience with opening our books and back rooms to outsiders so they could decide for themselves who and what we are.

 

Over the years we’ve worked with PETA for better laws to protect the cats.  I know a lot of people who have worked there over the past quarter of a century, and a lot who still do.  They have some truly brave, intelligent and dedicated staff who do the dirty under cover work others fear.  They are some of the most tender hearted souls, but they bear witness to unbearable animal cruelty.  (The kind of things you’d scroll past fast on social sites because you can’t stand to see it)  They put themselves in harm’s way in order to gather the footage and evidence necessary to bring to justice some of what we consider the worst abusers, like Dade City’s Wild Things.  They have some of the best animal lawyers in the industry who use the pathetically inadequate laws we currently have to enforce the endangered species act where the government just chooses to turn a blind eye.  

 

Many times we have worked with PETA, who chose to stay in the background, because of the people who would regurgitate untruths about them in an effort to derail the real objective.  People who abuse animals don’t have a story that resonates with the public, so their only defense is to try and discredit those who are bringing them to task.  We’ve experienced a lot of that ourselves and often we have to work in the background, so that the abusers can’t divert the narrative away from their misdeeds.  

 

I can