UK Special report: evil pet fur trade

Situated conveniently close to the Channel ports, the elegant Belgian furrier's shop is a magnet for well-heeled British tourists, who are drawn inside by an elegant window display of luxurious coats and stoles.

At a time when fur is making a comeback in haute couture circles - with stars such as Madonna defiantly flaunting animal-skin fashion accessories - business has rarely been better at the old-established boutique run by Piet vander Eycken.

The bespectacled Belgian's wealthy clientele might be less willing to bolster his takings, however, if they knew the full range of items in his sales catalogue.

For, hidden away in a stockroom, behind the racks of mink and sable, are the pelts of dozens of slaughtered domestic cats.

They are readily available in every shade, from ginger tabby, tortoiseshell and marmalade to deep chocolate brown.

Presumably, however, Mr vander Eycken (whose name has been changed for legal reasons) keeps these furs out of view for fear of causing offence.

Yet when anyone asks specifically for 'cat', he is happy, indeed proud, to parade his wares, as I discovered when I met up with a team from the Humane Society of the United States in a joint investigation into the burgeoning cat and dog fur trade.

"I can show you many colours,' he said, thumbing through piles of unmistakably sleek feline pelts, after we asked him to make us a cat blanket - or rheumadecker - which are believed by some on the Continent to be beneficial for arthritis and rheumatism.

"I think these particular ones have been farmed (in Belgium). But I have others that are not from farms. There are places where they catch them. For dogs, it is the same. They are caught and brought to a specialist institute and if no one picks them up they get shot."

'Cat hunters' at work in London

Not long ago, he said nonchalantly, the bulk of his cats were brought by ferry from England.

Ruthless 'cat-hunters' in London would go around in vans, rounding up pets, and bring them to him for sale (as he spoke I recalled how a cat of my own had once vanished without trace). Today, they are more likely to be caught in Ghent or Brussels.

Before our investigation began, the Humane Society had uncovered evidence that some two million cats and dogs were being killed each year, often by the most barbaric methods. But until now, they were believed to originate exclusively from China and the Far East.

But as Mr vander Eycken chatted to his customers, he unwittingly provided an insight into a more shocking - and hitherto unknown - aspect of the trade: that of clandestine cat-fur farmers and cat thieves operating in the heart of Europe.

Our video footage, shot recently during a week-long incognito visit to the furriers of Belgium, was passed to Scottish Euro MP Struan Stevenson and forms the centrepiece of his campaign to have the cat and dog fur trade banned in Europe, as it has been in the U.S.

Mr Stevenson explained: "We had to confront the assertion that there was no cat or dog farming in the EU or the 10 countries that are about to join, and your film did just that.

"We've had the rugs you bought tested microscopically to confirm they are cat. And apparently these cats are being farmed, or collected, on the streets of Belgium, right under the noses of the EU commissioners who sit in their ivory towers and say it is just not happening."

Brussels bureaucrats were refusing to initiate a ban, he added, because the World Trade Organisation says it is unlawful to prevent trade on animal welfare grounds. But the sale of cat fur ought to be outlawed under consumer fraud leglislation, because products were almost always fitted with misleading labels.

This had been proved when an investigator visited China, where he posed as a potential importer. When he told a Chinese government official who accompanied him that items labelled 'cat' might cause offence in the West, the mandarin smiled.

"This is China," he replied, "we don't worry about things like that. We'll use whatever label you want.' He then trotted out a list of wellused bogus names such as ' Mongolian dog' and 'China wolf'.

In the cynical, heartless and ruthlessly exploitative secret world of the cat and dog fur traders, such tactics are wearily routine, as the Daily Mail/Humane Society investigation discovered.

Cat farms operating across the Channel

Although at least one cat farm appears to be operating just across the Channel, the vast majority of pelts are collected in the Far East, where there are scores of smallholdings keeping anything from a handful of cats or dogs to several hundred.

Because they are good-natured, easily-bred and need comparatively little food and husbandry, cats are particularly popular.

They are crammed into small bamboo cages and kept until their pelts are luxuriant and full-sized.

They are then executed in a horrific manner: lassooed with a noose slipped through the cage bars and around their necks, then hoisted, meowing and wriggling, until they fall silent. In this way, the pelts - the only thing that concerns their keepers - are not damaged.

In one farm, a two-hour flight from Beijing, investigators filmed more than a dozen cats being garrotted in this way until finally only one was left. Frozen with terror after witnessing the death of his companions, he bobbed and weaved his head in a frantic - but vain - effort to avoid the noose.

At another farm, in the Philippines, two caged cats were shown hugging one another in the apparent knowledge that they were about to die.

"They had seen 20 other cats pulled up and hanged," says Rick Swain, the Humane Society's chief investigator, who recently exposed the scandal of lamb foetus coats (like the one worn by Madonna) and has led the global pet fur inquiry.

"It's hard to believe that they didn't know what was happening, given the way they behaved.

"They were full-grown cats and they actually had their paws around one another. They were staring at the hidden camera absolutely petrified.

"These weren't farmed cats, they were strays picked up by rustlers. One had a heart-shaped collar so we know it was a family pet."

Farmed dogs are killed with similarly efficient brutality. Usually they are strung up by the legs, then an artery in the thigh is cut so that they bleed to death. Again, this avoids damage to their coats.

The profits are vast. Impoverished and ignorant farmers will sell their pelts to the tanneries for perhaps £1 or £1.50 each. By the time they are sold in Europe they can fetch 20 or 30 times that amount.

In one fashionable fur shop, in a small Flemish market town near Antwerp, we were offered a Chinese green-tabby cat coat for almost £2,000.

We were offered a 12-skin blanket for £220 although some high quality ones made with up to 80 skins

Source: MailOnSunday

Is your fake fur really cat fur?

It sounds too grotesque for words. But pelts from slaughtered cats and dogs are being passed off as 'ethical' fur. Last week, the US fashion industry cracked down on dubious ladelling, not good news for British shoppers as fashion insiders predict a flood of rejects from the US

The short video would have made even the most hardened fur-lover recoil. A grey longhaired German shepherd puppy is hauled from its cage by the neck before being strung up by a wire noose, which slowly strangles it to within an inch of its life. It is then skinned alive whilst blinking helplessly and moaning in agony. A PR disaster for the fur trade, this video is part of a huge campaign by the Humane Society of the United States. It culminated last week in the international animal rights charity exposing shocking new evidence that coats purchased from the top-end US designer store, Nordstrom, which stocks designer labels including Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, were found to be trimmed with fur from domestic dogs, even though the fur was advertised as fake. There was public outrage and the fashion industry in New York is still feeling the shockwaves. Panic set in as top names Calvin Klein, DKNY and Rocawear, and celebrities including Beyonce and P-Diddy whose fashion lines were stocked instore, rushed out statements expressing disgust. Described in shock news headlines as the “biggest industry-wide deception”  in recent years, it began after a tip-off from a customer who bought a surprisingly soft coat marked “faux fur”.

DNA tests revealed it to be domestic dog originating in China, which supplies well over half of the fur to the global market and is renowned for its inhumane killing methods. Other coats were found to be the skins of similarly banned members of the canine family, such as Racoon dog and wolf. There have been whispers for some time about the increase in dog and cat fur entering the global fur chain. But last week’s news finally blew the lid off the scandal. And those naïve enough to believe that this is an isolated incident are in for a wake up call.

In America importing cat and dog furs into the country has been outlawed since 2000. But in the UK ? a nation famed for its animal lovers ? there is no law banning the import of cat and dog fur at all, making it even more likely that a similar scandal could emerge. The Britsh Fur Association has signed up to a voluntary EU labelling scheme in a bid to reassure shoppers that its pelts are not tainted by cat and dog fur, and this autumn it plans to launch the Origin Assured (AO) label which will confirm that a product comes from a country where national or local regulations or standards governing fur production are in force'.

But unlike Australia, New Zealand and 5 other EU countries, the UK government has so far refused calls to sign up to a blanket ban on such imports. "Because fur is often dyed and treated, it is almost impossible to establish with 100 per cent certainty the true origin of the fur in our stores and markets," says Mark Glover, UK Director of Humane Society International.  "With DNA testing proving expensive and time consuming, and garments needing to be sent abroad for analysis, it is also impossible to check every garment that enters the market. "It is now widely established that much of the exceptionally real feeling faux fur on sale in street market stalls across the country, like that in the US, is actually real.?Last week's US clampdown is also expected to have a huge knock on effect globally - with imports of dog and cat fur now flooding the European market where legislation is more lax and demand for fur is equally high. But with most high street retailers and several top designer brands moving production to China in a bid to keep costs down, how long will it be before a major UK fashion chain is caught out? And when a cat pelt, can be bought in china for less than two dollars (compared with $6 for a dog) it is not suprising that many retailers turn a blind eye to its origins.

Cat fur is soft and luxurious enabling it to be passed off as any number of more expensive furs. While German Shepherd is the most popular breed of dog because its long fur so closely resembles that of wild animals such as coyote or racoon. Labrador and Alsatian pelts have also been found. Recent figures reveal that China slaughters over two million cat and dogs every year to satisfy Western demand - supplying 50% of the fur in America. "How much of this is cat and dog pelt is impossible to tell but official figures reveal that 5,400 cats and dogs are slaughtered across China every day with the majority shipped to the West- someone has to be buying them," adds Glover. While campaigners are pushing for EU-wide measures to ban the sale of cat and dog in all 25 member nations, the RSPCA says there is a strong likelihood that cat and dog fur is being worn by unsuspecting customers in a variety of fur trims. One major high street chain was even also forced to withdraw all fur from its collections after jackets trimmed with "coyote" were found to be dog fur.  Wander through Covent Garden's jubilee market or celebrity favourite Portobello Road any afternoon and you are confronted by a vast array of fur lined gloves, coats, hats and accessories priced at rock bottom prices, such as £10 for a pair of leather fur lined gloves.

Some are labelled "genuine fur", others simply "made in china"  but because most of these garmets fall outside the usual mink or fox labels, they are imported under the "Other fur" category, which means retailers are not legally obliged to state which animal they come from.

"The demand for fur this winter has been so high that I've struggled to keep up," said one retailer in Covent Garden's Jubilee Market this week. Asked if he knew the origin of the fur on a pair of black leather gloves he was selling he shrugged his shoulders. Such demand inevitably means buyers are less discerning about its source. Posing as potential buyers, animal charity Care for the Wild International (CWI) went undercover in London and Hong Kong to reveal the extent to which Chinese fur is flooding the UK market. They were offered a range of skins including leopard and domestic cats skins. While many originate from Spain, the vast majority are Chinese. The vast majority of "rabbit" pom pom scarves  popular for the past two winters, and a snip at £5 is available in markets up and down the UK - were exposed as cat fur.

The Humane Society International first revealed Europe's role in the dog and cat fur back in 1998. As part of the original inquiry, investigators followed pelts across the world to France and Germany, where the fur was being made into coats, clothing trim, glove linings, and children's toys. The fur was also found in Spain, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, and the Netherlands. Sickening evidence collected included a blanket made out of 4 golden retrievers bought in Copenhagen, individual cat skins complete with eye holes, paws and tales in Barcelona and a full length coat made out of up to 42 Alsatian puppies bought in Berlin. And in spite of anti-fur campaigners, the demand for fur in general on our high streets this winter was higher than ever before. Sales in the UK topped 50 million for the first time ' up 30 per cent on two years ago. But because of dubious labelling, there is no official data on the trade. "It is the importer of the fur garment who chooses how the product is to be labelled," says Glover. "We have recordings of Chinese factory owners admitting to us during undercover investigations that they are happy to attach any label to garments to make them more marketable." The fur industry's new labelling initiatives have been seen by many as a step in the right direction. Regulations include guidelines that protect the environment and ensure sustainable wildlife programs and humane farming practices.  "The labelling programme is part of a commitment to openness and transparency," says Andrea Martin of the British Fur Association.  "As an industry, we deplore and work against the mistreatment of all animals."  But it is the people who operate outside the official fur industry who are the worry, as investigations by PETA reveal.

Footage shows dogs and cats in cramped factories or being rounded up on the street where they are sold for their skin. Many still have their collars on at the time of slaughter,  a sign they were domesticated pets.  Dogs can be seen cowering in dark cold unsanitary rooms surrounded by the bodies of dead skinned dogs suspended from hooks.  Cats are strangled with nooses one by one in wooden cages. This summer the EU will decide whether to impose a blanket ban on the imports of all cat and dog pelts, which at least is a step in the right direction. But the Internet is set to be the next hurdle. The rise in web shopping means that hundreds of China-based companies can carry on passing off cat and dog fur under various guises to customers and fashion retailers online - no questions asked.  So, next time you're tempted by a 'faux fur' trimmed parka, or a suprisingly cheap pair of fur-lined gloves, you might want to think twice about whether the mittens are kitten and the hood is hound. Chances are it is.

Source: MailOnSunday