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SKINNED ALIVE
The trade in cat and dog fur
Imagine someone stealing your cat or dog and skinning it alive
before it dies a slow, agonising death. Yet, as hard as it is to imagine, this
is the daily reality for over two million domestic animals every year in China.
Fuelled by the insatiable demands of a cruel and callous fashion
industry, cats and dogs, along with 40 million other animals, are slaughtered
for their fur and sold internationally.
Innocent cats and kittens are strangled and slit open
while other cats watch terrified, the little kittens among them paralysed with
fear trying to make themselves invisible, all awaiting the same fate.
The dogs are tethered by a wire noose, then stabbed in the
groin, the lucky ones bleed to death before being skinned, those less fortunate
are skinned once blood loss renders them too weak to struggle. Some desperately
try to escape in a pool of blood. This method of slaughter causes least damage
to the animals' fur, thus preserving its market value.
A recent undercover investigation by the Humane Society of the United States
(HSUS) and investigative journalist Manfred Karreman exposed one of the dirtiest
of the fur trade's secrets. They followed the blood trail across three continents
and filmed cats and dogs being beaten, strangled and stripped of their fur.
They filmed the whole gruesome business from the Chinese slaughterhouses to
the European auction houses.
In March 1999, BBC2's Newsnight exposed a London fur company, Alaska Brokerage
owned by Peter and Carol Bartfield, demonstrating that they were willing to
trade in cat and dog fur - although the firm claims that it has no association
with the extreme cruelty exposed by the HSUS and Karreman. The Newsnight programme
further pointed out that the trade in cat and dog skins in Europe is legal and
fur does not have to be labelled by species or even as real fur.
While many people know that all animals killed for their fur suffer terribly,
few are aware of the grisly killing methods: the gassing, lethal injection,
neck-breaking and anal electrocution. But the film of cats and dogs, collected
as part of the HSUS and Karreman investigation, shows some of the most shocking
footage ever shot. As well as dogs being tied by the neck, stabbed in the groin
and left to bleed to death, cats and kittens killed by being hung from a rope
and strangled, investigators witnessed cats being hung by a wire noose while
water was forced down their throats through a hose until they drowned. The film
is silent, but it shows the animals' extreme pain and distress as they struggle
fully conscious and bleeding.
"It was terrible", recalls Karreman. "I saw
a cat with her fur being ripped off its back, screaming for a whole minute.
I wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and I can still hear her screaming.
I still see their faces, the terror and pain in their eyes; and I hear their
desperate cries."
Following the HSUS exposé, America was outraged and the government acted
immediately and outlawed the import, export and sale of products made with dog
and cat fur. The US Dog and Cat Protection Act 2000 requires all fur products,
however small, to be DNA tested. Violators are liable to six months imprisonment
and a $10,000 fine. Unfortunately, most EU countries, particularly Britain,
seem reluctant to stop this horrific trade. The US ban, however, means that
more of these products are now likely to be imported into the EU and Britain.
There is further concern that consumers may not be aware that the fur-trimmed
clothing and accessories, stuffed animals and pet toys they are buying may be
made from dog and cat fur. The Department of Trade and Industry has long been
aware that "there is a legitimate trade in cat skins" and last year,
over 500 tonnes of fur, 66 tonnes classified as "other fur" - the
category under which cat and dog fur falls - was imported into the UK.
Dr Nick Palmer MP is the sponsor of an Early-Day Motion in the House of Commons
which has the support of 224 cross-party MP and urges the government to follow
the American precedent. At a recent Adjournment Debate in the House he spoke
of the two million cats and dogs living and dying in appalling conditions each
year in fur farms in the Philippines and China. He also noted that the British
Fur Trade Association had promised not to deal in cat and dog fur, but the Newsnight
report had shown a "reputable member of the fur trade who was prepared
systematically to mislabel cat and dog fur imports".
Mark Glover, award-winning campaign director of Respect for Animals, said they
were "extremely disappointed with the government's indifference. The US
and Italy have banned such imports and the government themselves have described
it as 'abhorrent', yet they are incapable of taking a moral position on anything."
Alaska Brokerage's Peter Bartfeld, formerly a director of the British Fur Trade
Association, is secretive about his involvement in the fur trade. When I managed
to track him at his home, after a series of failed attempts, he finally returned
my call with unconcealed hostility. "I do not trade in cats and dogs,"
he shouted, stuttering with fury. "And if you got your information from
the animal rights people, they're seriously misinformed. The BBC report is a
completely bogus set up." Bartfeld has previously claimed that the cat
skins they deal in come from vets... that they were already dead when acquired.
A 1987 Financial Times article reported him as saying that "all European
cat skins that are used in the trade come from dead animals that have been put
to sleep by vets. Vets kill animals, not fur traders."
The BBC's 1999 investigation into Alaska Brokerage's secret activities revealed
that the company was prepared to sell cat and dog pelts to anyone who was prepared
to pay. BBC investigator Martin Wilson visited Alaska Brokerage and filmed Peter
Bartfeld offering 10,000 "goupee" (a term for dog fur) and 150,000
cat furs. Bartfeld explained that dog is labelled "goupee" and cat
"Jeanette" or "Chinese cat", adding that this deception
is necessary "because of the sensitive nature of the fur business".
He boasted to the reporter that "whatever trade is being done in Britain,
I'm the one doing it". A Companies House search reveals Alaska Brokerage
International, formerly known as Lenhart & Rosenberg Ltd, has been trading
since 1967, listing Peter Bartfeld, his American wife Carol and their 25-year-old
son Gideon as joint directors. A worldwide operation with offices in London
and New York and associated offices in Hong Kong (Bartfeld Trading Ltd), it
is now solely a family-owned business with an ex-directory phone number.
In China, the investigators discovered that cats and dogs were being raised
on breeding farms, many small scale, but some were collected abandoned strays
and some appeared to be stolen companion animals. Ironically, while long-haired
cats are kept as pets in China, short-haired cats, especially ginger or grey
tabbies were kept chained outside and raised for their fur. The larger breeding
farms, which Karreman referred to as "worse than concentration camps",
kept up to 300 animals at a time in appalling, squalid conditions. They saw
dogs, mostly pups under six months old, sitting in dark, windowless and bitterly
cold sheds, surrounded by the bodies of dead dogs hanging from hooks. The dogs,
chained by thin metal wire, were left with no food or water while they waited
to be transported to slaughterhouses.
This was how the dogs lived out their short, grim existence before being crammed
into tiny, filthy cages or sacks to make the harrowing journey to the slaughterhouse
- a trip which could take up to three days while they suffered without food
or water.
Following a slaughterhouse-bound truck, investigators spotted among the dozens
of terrified faces a sweet, floppy-eared mongrel who seemed to symbolise the
heartbreak of this barbaric trade. He was a small, black dog with butterscotch
eyes, not much more than a pup. He wore a pastel collar with a heart-shaped
pendant inscribed with the word "love". Was he some child's much-loved
pet? The investigators bought the puppy, fed him and took him to the vet, then
found him a safe and loving home.
Karreman and his team risked their lives getting inside the slaughterhouses.
"These places were very difficult to find and
access was even more difficult. We pretended to be suppliers and after we
established trust with the dealers, we got to accompany them to the farms
and the slaughterhouses. These dealers and butchers are ruthless gangsters,
they would have killed us if we were discovered. I got a lot death threats
afterwards and continue to get them. But for me it was worth it because otherwise
these things will never stop. And some good did come out of it.
"In the Philippines, the police raided some cat
slaughterhouses after we gave them the addresses. They found thousands of
cats who were about to be killed, about 30,000 stolen pets, which is one of
the reasons the police raided it, because they were definitely stolen pets.
And in Thailand they're coming out with new animal protection laws because
of the investigation."
However it is a different story in China, a country with one of the world's
worst animal abuse record. By the time the animals reach the slaughterhouse
in the city of Harbin, many are sick and some are even dead. The investigators
watched a truck arrive one evening, densely packed with dogs. "We had to
watch these dogs being killed without showing any emotion," Karreman says
faintly in a strained, heartfelt voice. "It was a difficult, devastating
experience, crying inside while speaking calmly. After a while your soul gets
eroded. But it has to be done, otherwise you can't deal with such people."
Designers Dolce Gabbana, who have always been big on fur, came up with a microskirt
made entirely of "Chinese cat". When groups such as People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) disclosed that this was, in fact, made from
real domestic moggie, creating an uproar, D&G backtracked and claimed that
it was actually ponyskin. "Well, if it's not cat, why call it that?"
says PETA's Andrew Butler, adding, "Amazingly, they claimed that ponyskin
was a euphemism for cat in Italian. When our Italian office asked for samples
for DNA testing, they refused. And, of course, that one garment that was contentious
has suddenly disappeared."
The fur renaissance, if you believe the hype, has started up again. "There
is no fur renaissance," says Gucci designer Stella McCartney, "It's
just the fashion industry's sick, twisted little moment. Fur may be on the catwalk,
but it's not on the streets." But perception is often stronger than the
reality. The catwalks and fashion glossies are ablaze with animal prints and
skins.
"These days nobody cool wears fur and there's no excuse
for wearing it", says Andrew Butler: "Anyone who's horrified that
dogs and cats are kept in sickening, disgusting conditions, and that they
suffer slow, brutal deaths, shouldn't be buying fur because there's no guarantee
that the coat or the fur trim isn't cat or dog. In fact, the likelihood is
that it will be cat or dog because it's cheaper to use."
Celia Hammond, Sixties Vogue covergirl turned animal activist who owns the
two London cat clinics, the Celia Hammond Trust, believes the demise of this
greedy industry, already ailing, is inevitable: "It's monstrously cruel,
this business with cats and dogs. But people have to remember that all fur is
cruelly produced and whether it's a dog or a fox the suffering is still the
same."
Report © Britt Collins.
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