Passers-by can’t help but slow down as they walk by the downtown Nordstrom entrance on Sundays. At the intersection of Yamhill and Broadway, a television seated on a little red wagon takes up residence 12 feet from Nordstrom’s glass doors. With the screen depicting animals chewing off their own limbs and dying slow deaths from dehydration as the centerpiece, half a dozen people with leaflets and signs that read “Real Fur is Never Worth the Price” strike up conversations with anyone who will listen. “This is not a protest,” says Matt Rossell, Northwest Director of In Defense of Animals (IDA). “We’re just educating people. It’s inevitable that one department store will be the first store to stop selling fur altogether. And we think it’ll be Nordstrom.”
It’s not the first Portland store Rossell and IDA protesters have set their sights on. When animal rights protesters zeroed in on Portland’s Schumacher Furs shop in 2006, the fur shop lost. Big time.
Rossell has been educating Portlanders for years on various topics ranging from nicotine experiments on primates at OHSU to elephants needing more space at the Oregon Zoo. What makes him the expert, one might ask? He was employed in the primate laboratories of OHSU for two years. As for the the video playing in front of Nordstrom, it was recorded by Rossell during a four-month stint at a fur farm when he was working under the guise of an entrepreneurial fur farmer. (WW’s Philip Dawdy wrote about Rossell’s experiences in a February 2000 cover story, The Spy Who Loved Monkeys.) Rossell gives me a play-by-play of everything on the TV screen after a discussion about anal electrocution and the gassing of minks. Both the video and the conversation make my stomach turn, but as picketer Nadine Zimmer reminds me when I mention how graphic the video is, “that’s reality.”
“The fur industry operates totally under the radar,” Rossell says as he chases his spunky two and a half year old daughter Felix, doing double-duty as activist and dad on a chilly first day of February. “There are no inspections and no laws.” And as for claims from stores that their fur is humanely farmed, he says that is bullhonky, despite the International Fur Trade Federation’s Origin Assured Label Program that rolled out in Dec. 2006. “There is no way to claim that their fur is humane because there is no way to track where it comes from.”
While the International Fur Trade Federation and Matt Rossell disagree on whether fur can be tracked, guessing that your fur coat came from China would be pretty smart bet. In an article published by Reuters on Jan. 19, 2009, “according to local industry experts, the level of fur production in northeastern China has been increasing steadily by 10 percent per year since 2004.” And if you thought fur farms in the United States were committing egregious acts, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. PETA Germany asserts that dogs and cats are being killed for their fur. And by using their fur, I mean misrepresenting it as the fur of a more attractive and costly species.
So while I haven’t eaten since my conversation with Matt Rossell and subsequent research on the fur trade, I feel more informed. Get your own knowledge fix between 2:30 pm and 4 pm every Sunday outside of Nordstrom.
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Tags: Animals
Fur Commission USA is the nonprofit trade assocation for mink farmers and we’d like to post a few quick comments on this article. Visit our site at http://www.furcommission.com for info on mink farming and other types of farming for pelts used in natural fiber cold weather clothing, fine oils and other products. If you are an omnivore, you’re feeding mink.
For info on how the fur industry is regulated, see Question 3 at http://www.furcommission.com/FAQ.htm
For info on how farmed animals are killed, see the AVMA report at http://www.furcommission.com/farming/index.html#Anchor-Humane-35326
For info on the scent facility which Rossell visited, see 1997-2008 entry at http://www.furcommission.com/news/newsC7.htm
Any questions, send us an email at furfarmers@aol.com
And dress warmly — it’s cold outside!
Matt Rossell is simply wrong to say there is no way to track back furs in a coat to assure they were taken humanely. The IFTF’s new "Origin Assured" program includes independent auditing to do precisely that. See: http://www.OriginAssured.com. Meanwhile, Rossell’s fanatical opposition to fur is, ironically, totally anti-ecological. See: http://www.FurisGreen.com.
I wore a fake fur big collared sweater today and a felt and fake fur hat. I’m just carrying them now because it is warm. Guess I had better not put them back on.
I rarely see people in fur coats in Portland, but when I was in Washington DC there were so many men and women dressed in full length fur coats, jackets and hats to the point where I was thinking none of this would fly with Portlanders.
PETA’s website has a list of faux fur and leather retailers (http://www.peta.org/Living/alt2.asp).
Hopefully theses businesses treat their employeees humanely. I’m for the ethical treatment of humans as well as animals.
I don’t care if you can track a fur, you can say it’s killed humanely but…How is killing any animal humane?, especially when it’s for it’s own fur, which we don’t need, but they do!!!
Jennifer the fur industry is not underground. If you go to peta.org you will see first hand video of CHINA, JAPAN skinning animals alive right there on the streets. I watched them slice the testicles of a male german shepard with his head in a chain link fence, as they watched him howl and bleed to death. They go and steal pets off peoples lawns and strays roaming the streets, put them in chicken wire cages stacked 10 ft high on a truck as they drive down main streets to an open garage and hang them up, then skin them alive….Sweetheart they are not underground…its right out there in the open and these places if they truly cared could stop this inhumane act toward animals….I pray for them all the time….Then again the USA isn’t any better with our livestock and animals…heck they use them for animal testing…I hope people aren’t purchasing IAMS pet food….they are the #1 leading animals testers…
i have had the unfortunate opportunity to visit sites where i found video footage of dogs and cats being skinned alive and conscious for thier fur… and these were videos that could not be faked.
it’s going on.. it’s "underground"… and we need to wake up to the fact that we are destroying something precious.
"faux fur"???? i don’t believe it!
As all commenting here, I am very much against any form of animal torture and unnecessary suffering too. However, I admit: as I eat meat on top of my vegetables, and wear leather and silk
nika you are as a matter of fact supporting the suffering of animals as long as you eat any animal products so no you are not really against the suffering, you can turn and look at it from all angles, there is no excuse or justification. please get gary franciones book "introduction to animal rights your child or your dog" and educate yourself. The animals will thank you. I am vegan by the way.
Great initiative. In an age of transparency this is what any industry should promote. http://www.pelsland.be
You won’t be “educated” or “informed” by Rossell. You’ll be propagandized. It’s shocking that so many people swallow the myths of the animal “rights” movement as gospel. Dog and cat fur?!! It’s illegal to import or sell such coats in the U.S. You take practices in a developing country and accuse an entire industry of doing the same thing in the west. The so-called “dog” of the staged skinning video (more than likely staged/financed by animal rightists to make their point because noone in their right mind would skin a living, squirming, biting animal armed with teeth and claws)is not a domestic dog but an Asiatic raccoon known as Nyctereutes Procyonoides. Why don’t you admit that most of the rancor about fur has to do with issues of perceived class distinctions, social status, notions of privilege, and a healthy dose of spite and resentment. If you really want to be informed check the TOTAL agenda of the animal “rights” movement, not just the “wedge” issue of fur. Read some of the actual statements of the activists and luminaries in their movement/industry and you’d be shocked at the lack of their vaunted “compassion” for human beings or for the continuation of civilization as we know it.
Veronika, you must have an extremely low regard to the life of any animal.
So what if the dog was an Asiatic Racoon – they are very much like a dog and regardless of their “official” breed – have feelings also! Anyone or any group that works so hard to exploit the suffering of any animal being killed in vain for its fur, should be praised for their efforts and accomplishments.
As a pet owner of four dogs and three cats, I applaud PETA and all of the other groups out there that have this mission so close to their hearts.