The fur retailing season is beginning, and with it we can expect the usual flurry of fur protests. Despite decades of anti-fur campaigning, activists have generally failed in their efforts to push designers and consumers away from using and wearing nature’s most beautiful clothing material. Fur has probably never been featured in so many top designer runway collections, and fur has certainly never been used in a wider variety of products, from apparel to accessories to home furnishings.

But animal rights activists are not very interested in opinions that differ from their own, so the fur protests continue.

Sometimes, consumers are harassed and retailers are warned that their stores will be targets until they stop selling fur. (Can you spell Protection Racket?) A favourite new tactic is the store invasion (often called Direct Action Everywhere or DxE) where activists enter a shop, individually, posing as consumers, and then pull out posters and begin chanting slogans in unison. One or more protesters film the “action”, taunting shop owners and security staff who dare not push them towards the exit for fear of being slapped with assault charges. Another nasty new trick is to flood a retailer’s Facebook page with negative comments and reviews.

Following are some ways to protect your retail business from animal rights protests.

1. Use Early-Warning Systems

While fur protests can happen any time – especially during the fur season – the next big activist target date is “Fur Free Friday” (the activist response to “Black Friday”), which falls on November 24 this year. Google "Fur Free Friday 2017” to see if your town is listed. Or monitor the national Facebook page.

There are many ways to find out about protests that may be planned for your store. Animal rights groups are often headquartered on university or college campuses, and they find many of their foot soldiers there. So monitor university bulletin boards. It's even better if someone you know can join the local animal-rights group. Or simply keep an eye on the Facebook page of your local animal-rights group.

Not least important, your national fur trade association can provide a timely heads-up when trouble is brewing, or advice and assistance if your store becomes a target. Be sure you are a paid-up member of the Fur Information Council of America (323.782.1700; [email protected]), or the Fur Council of Canada (514-844-1945; [email protected]). They need your support so they can be there to support you!

2. Build Relations with Local Law Enforcement ... and Others

It is always best to build your relationship with local police before you need their help. It can be as simple as calling your local precinct and asking for a meeting with a commanding officer. Or speak with officers who patrol your street. Explain your concern that stores selling fur are often targets for protests or vandalism. Getting to know your local police can play big dividends: they can often warn you of up-coming protests, or keep an eye on your store at night, especially in the period before and after fur protests, a time when vandalism often occurs.

Not least important, police can be present during demos, to tone down rowdy demonstrators and ensure that consumers can access your store without being harassed. While police cannot “take sides”, they do have a mandate to keep the peace and prevent harassment or confrontation, which allows them to keep protesters a certain distance from your door. How they interpret this mandate often depends on what sort of relationship you have developed beforehand.

Remember always to file a police report about any harassment, threats, graffiti or other vandalism, no matter how minor. Take photos before scraping away graffiti from store windows or walls. And keep any threatening phone messages. Such incidents often precede more significant attacks. And these reports allow police to see patterns of radical activism developing, or to make a case with their commanding officers for devoting scarce resources to protecting your store.

You should also build bridges with your local business group or Chamber of Commerce, and with local politicians. Their support can help to ensure that the police will be there when you need them.

3. Secure Your Store

Most fur stores have good security systems to prevent break-ins and theft – insurance companies require them – but be sure you have security cameras and that they are functioning! Cameras surveying the inside of the store can help to identify protesters who enter your premises. Cameras facing the sidewalk can discourage vandalism.

One particularly nasty activist weapon is Butyric acid, a carboxylic acid that has an extremely powerful and unpleasant vomit-like odour. When sprayed under the doors of a store, at night, fur coats can be effectively ruined, as the smell is nearly impossible to remove. The best solution is prevention: ensure that there Is no way to spray anything under your doors or through keyholes or mail slots!

4. Prepare Yourself and Your Staff

Plan and discuss the procedures you will employ if there is a protest at your store. As a general policy, do not engage or argue with protesters; confrontation will only encourage them and could make the protest more "newsworthy" if any media are present. Never touch or push protesters.

Some retailers have rented large cube vans to park in front of their stores, blocking the protesters from the view of passing cars or pedestrians on the opposite sidewalk.

If you know in advance about a protest, consider hiring professional security: they have the knowledge and experience to handle protesters lawfully and effectively.

If you are subjected to repeated or abusive fur protests, you should consult a lawyer: there is a considerable body of labour law relating to the legal limits of picketing.

5. During Fur Protests

It is rare that protesters try to enter stand-alone stores (DxE invasions usually target shops in malls), but if they do, ask them to leave, and call the police. Do not try to expel protesters physically; it is very likely that you are being filmed, and any physical contact could result in criminal charges.

It can be useful to have someone photograph the fur protesters, for identification if needed, and to let them know they are being watched. But check first to ensure that this is legal in your town. And remember rule number one: you do not want to escalate tensions or provoke violence. It is usually better to suffer through the occasional fur protest quietly, rather than make yourself a target for more protests.

For those who would like to respond more actively, the Retail Fur Council of Canada has produced a new tool for retailers to use if they are subjected to a DxE store invasion. Click on the posters below to download, then print them out and hold them up behind chanting protesters or in front of their cameras, or display them in store windows during fur protests. Messages include: “Say NO to extremists” and “Defend freedom of choice!” Such tools should be used with caution, though; you do not want to escalate tensions or make yourself more of a target.

6. Dealing with Media

Media now usually ignore fur protests, especially in larger cities. If journalists do ask you to comment, it is usually best to refer them to your national association (FICA or the FCC). Your association professionals are trained and better prepared to speak with the media ... and they have no street-level store windows to break.

If you do want to say something, keep it simple and positive, and then suggest that the journalist contact your national association for more information.

Here are some examples of the type of media statement you can make:

• “If someone does not want to wear fur or leather, or eat meat, that’s their choice. But most people in our society think we do have a right to use animal products, so long as this is done responsibly -- as fur is. If you want to know more about that, you should speak with our national association; I will give you their coordinates.”
• “Everyone has a right to their opinions, but our business is doing very well. We are very proud to offer our customers high-quality and sustainably-produced natural products like fur. If you want to know more about that ...”
• “If our store is thriving after so many years, it is because there are many people who appreciate the beauty of natural clothing materials. Sure there are synthetic alternatives, but most are made from petroleum, which is not really better for animals or the environment. If you want more information about how fur is produced ..."

7. Dealing with Cyber-Attacks

Several North American retailers have recently been hit with cyber-attacks where their Facebook pages are flooded with negative comments and ratings.

If this happens, here are some things you can do:

• Contact Facebook immediately and ask them to remove the abusive (and fake) ratings/reviews. Go to Facebook's Help Centre here, and follow the menu items Policies and Reporting / Reporting Abuse.
• Tell them this is an orchestrated terrorist-type cyber-attack; tell them you feel threatened.
• If you advertise with Facebook, tell them you will stop advertising if they cannot remove these abusive posts/ratings quickly. (It works!)
• If Facebook does not respond quickly, contact [email protected]; as a stop-gap measure we can rally supporters for positive posts.
• The simplest and quickest solution of all is simply to disable the ratings and comments section of your Facebook page.

Finally, remember: It is always best to be prepared, but most fur protests are brief and relatively harmless. The most important thing is to remain calm and not be suckered into escalating the tension. If you learn that you will be targeted by a fur protest, contact your national association – they have the experience to help you get through these frustrating episodes.

Do you have any other ideas or experiences you would like to share? We would love to hear from you!

Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri puzzled many when he recently announced that the prestigious design label would go "fur-free" in 2018. The confusion wasn’t about the decision itself – fashion companies change directions all the time – but about Bizzarri’s claim that a fur-free Gucci was meant to demonstrate "our absolute commitment to making sustainability an intrinsic part of our business."

Mr. Bizzarri’s comments are certainly bizarre, and not only because Gucci was founded and is still known as a leather designer.

His comments are bizarre because, whatever your personal opinions about the ethics of using animals, there is no debate about the fact that the modern fur trade is an excellent example of environmental sustainability.

Perhaps someone should explain to this social-responsibility-climbing CEO what environmental sustainability really means.

Following is a short primer on sustainability and fur.

SEE ALSO: Sustainabiity: Why is Gucci so confused?

Sustainability Primer for Fur-Free Gucci

The concept of sustainable development was launched by the Brundtland Report, from the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), published in book form as Our Common Future, in 1987. As quoted on the corporate responsibility and sustainability page of Gucci’s own website, this landmark document proposed that our environmental challenge is to meet "the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

In layman’s terms this means living on the “interest” that nature provides, without depleting our environmental “capital”, i.e., the air, water, and natural ecosystems that we depend upon for our survival. So, whenever possible, we should use renewable resources (plants, animals) rather than non-renewable resources (petroleum-based synthetics). And we should use these renewable resources sustainably, i.e., no faster than nature can replenish the supply.

The sustainable use of renewable natural resources is based on the fact that most species of plants and animals produce more young than their habitat can support to maturity. The ones that don’t make it feed others. And we are part of this natural system. We too can use part of this natural “surplus” for our food, clothing, shelter and other needs.

Let’s see how fur measures up to these sustainability requirements. There are two main types of fur used today: wild-sourced and farm-raised. They have somewhat different implications for sustainability, so we will consider them separately.

Wild-Sourced Furs: Sustainable Use of an Abundant and Renewable Resource

The modern wild-fur trade is an environmental success story. All the fur we use today comes from abundant species, never from endangered species.

Thanks to national and international regulations, fur is an excellent example of the responsible and sustainable use of renewable natural resources.

To ensure that we use only part of the surplus that nature produces (“sustainability”), trapping is strictly regulated in North America by state, provincial and territorial wildlife biologists. Thanks to these regulations, the most important North American furbearers (beaver, muskrat, coyote, fox, raccoon) are as abundant today as they have ever been, or even more abundant. In fact, furbearer populations would have to be controlled in many regions even if we did not use the fur, to prevent the spread of disease or to protect livestock, property, other species or natural habitat.

SEE ALSO: Abundant Furbearers: An Environmental Success Story

And while not strictly a sustainability issue, it is also reassuring to know that North American trappers respect animal welfare. Modern trapping methods have been refined by more than 30 years of scientific research and must comply with the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards (in Canada) and Best Practices (in the US).

Wild furs are, in fact, the ultimate free-range, organic and locally sourced clothing material. By contrast, most synthetic materials are made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource.

Not least important: when you buy wild fur you are providing income to First Nations and other people living in rural and remote regions where alternative employment can be hard to find. Helping people remain on the land – where they can monitor industrial activity and sound the alarm when nature is threatened – is also an important sustainability objective.

Farm-Raised Furs: Completing a Sustainable Agricultural Nutrient Cycle

Globally, most fur is now produced on farms, and fur farms also contribute to environmental sustainability in several important ways.

Mink and fox are the most commonly farmed furbearers. They are carnivores, and are fed left-overs from our own food-production – e.g., the parts of cows, chickens, fish and other food animals that we don’t eat.

Farmed fur animals recycle food wastes into a beautiful, long-lasting and ultimately biodegradable clothing material, while their manure, carcasses and soiled straw bedding are used to produce bio-diesel and organic fertilizers, completing the nutrient cycle.

Fur animals are raised on small, family-run farms. And fur farms can thrive in regions where the soil is too poor or the climate too harsh for most other agriculture.

And, again, while not strictly a sustainability issue, it is reassuring to know that fur farmers provide their animals with excellent nutrition and care. Animal welfare is assured by legislation and various codes of practice, but, above all, because excellent nutrition and care are essential to produce high-quality fur.

Fur-Free Gucci Is Misguided and Hypocritical

As even this brief summary shows, Gucci’s new fur-free policy completely contradicts its CEO’s claims about "our absolute commitment to making sustainability an intrinsic part of our business."

Bizzarri also justified Gucci’s new policy by claiming that fur is “not modern,” a serious charge in the fashion world. But what could be more modern than using materials that are produced responsibly and sustainably, like fur?

Fur-free Gucci smacks of opportunism and hypocrisy because, as mentioned, Gucci has always been known for its leather products. Someone should tell it that leather is produced by scraping the fur from an animal hide.

Some argue that leather is a by-product of animals raised primarily for food. But some fur animals are also eaten, including various types of farmed sheep and rabbits. Beaver, muskrat and other wild furbearers also provide food for aboriginal and other trappers and their families.

Furthermore, not all leather comes from food animals – notably the python and other exotic leathers used extensively by Gucci. In fact, Gucci’s parent group, Kering, recently bought its own python farm in Thailand to ensure good welfare conditions for the reptiles its members use. If Gucci was concerned about the welfare of fur animals, instead of dropping this beautiful and environmentally sustainable material, surely it would have done better to inspect the fur farms that supply it, or learn about how wild fur production is regulated.

Perhaps the good news in this story is that Gucci's bizarre decision about fur provides an opportunity to begin a more serious public discussion about the real meaning of sustainable living. And companies like Gucci can play an important role in this discussion. But first, it would do well to do its research and review its ill-conceived position on fur.

If you want to tell Gucci what you think of its new fur-free policy, you can contact it here (options vary depending on region, just pick one). Include the URL of this blog post, and recommend viewing of Furbearing Animals: A Renewable Natural Resource, by the Fur Council of Canada.

Or you can email Gucci directly at: [email protected]
Or telephone: 1-877-482-2499.

SEE ALSO:

Does Gucci Really Want to Choke the World with Plastic Fur? By Mark Oaten, CEO, International Fur Federation

Gucci: Ethically Minded or Sadly Mistaken? Things that Make You Go Hmmm. FurInsider.com

It has been some 35 years since I began promoting the ethical credentials of the fur trade and denouncing the fallacies of animal-rights extremism. As a pro-fur warrior, I have had many odd and interesting encounters, some of which you may find amusing. Following are a few memorable moments, in no particular order.

After the publication of my book Second Nature: The Animal-Rights Controversy, in the mid-1980s, I was often asked to address groups of livestock producers and others who worked with animals, to explain the new challenges posed by the emerging animal-rights movement. To help my audiences understand the animal-rights philosophy, I liked to throw out a challenge: Why, I asked, do we think it’s “OK” to kill and eat a cow, for example, if we don’t think it’s acceptable to kill Charlie, sitting there in the first row, even if we sneak up on him while he’s sleeping so he doesn’t feel any stress or pain?

The question invariably produced a chuckle, and it got them thinking. But it didn’t faze one old cowboy who had been tasked with thanking me for my presentation to a group of Western Canadian cattlemen. “By the way: the reason it’s OK to eat a cow but not Charlie,” he said, turning to look at me with a sly grin, “is because the cow has its eyes on the sides of its head.” What he meant, of course, was that predators – including tigers, owls ... and humans – have eyes in the centre of our faces, to provide the bifocal vision needed to accurately evaluate pouncing distances. Prey animals generally sacrifice such precision for a wide-angle view of approaching danger. I was supposed to be the communicator, but that weather-beaten rancher summed up a central dilemma of the animal-rights debate in just a few words.*

Touching Moments

Some of my encounters have sounded a more touching note. I will never forget the young Inuit woman in tears after I brought her to an animal-rights lecture, she was so hurt by the way her people’s hunting traditions were denigrated. A dairy farmer’s daughter also cried as she told me how it felt to be labelled “cruel” by friends at school because of her father’s work: “My father who trudges out to the barn yet one more time before going to bed, even in the most bitter cold, to be sure ‘his girls’ are comfortable for the night!”

And then there was the Newfoundland hunter who thanked me for my writing because “it’s good to know that someone out there understands who we really are, our way of life.” And the Cree trapper who read Second Nature, footnotes and all, through a long winter season alone on his northern trap-line.

Each of these encounters, and many more like them, has rekindled and reinforced my determination to expose the cruel impact of misguided animal-rights campaigning.

And Absurdities

Other incidents had a more absurdist twist. Like the time I was invited for a media tour in England. Because of concerns about Animal Liberation Front violence – particularly nasty in Britain at the time – my hosts had taken security precautions. My name was registered at the chic West Kensington hotel only as “Incognito”. I didn’t think anything of it until that night when I phoned the front desk for a morning wake-up call. The receptionist confirmed the hour I had requested and then asked, “Will there be anything else, Mr. Incognito?” I assumed she was being ironic, until she added, “By the way, is your name Italian?”

Equally absurd, although certainly more disturbing, was my encounter with Richard Adams, of Watership Down fame. When not writing about the secret life of rabbits, Adams was an animal activist who travelled to Canada to protest the seal hunt in 1977, and enjoyed a brief and turbulent stint as president of the RSPCA. When I met him in the late 1980s, Adams was campaigning against the fur trade in the United States, and I was asked to debate him on Boston television. He refused to shake my hand when we were introduced before the broadcast ("I wouldn’t shake hands with Hitler," he explained), but I stole his thunder – and precious minutes of live television time – by sticking my hand into a soft-catch fox trap “on camera” while explaining why his claims about cruel trapping were misinformed and outdated.

The best was yet to come. After the TV debate, we were invited for an in-depth interview by a Boston Globe journalist. She offered Adams the opening salvo, but he ignored her as he busily perused a sheaf of notes. After I explained a few facts about fur, she turned to Adams again. Still not a word. So I was able to explain a bit more. And then more. Until, suddenly, as the journalist reported in the next day’s paper, Mr. Adams gathered up his papers, stood up without a word, and left the building.

I saw Richard Adams one more time, a few days later, at a New York television studio where we were scheduled to debate again. I was waiting in the Green Room when Adams walked in and informed the producer that he would not appear on the program if I was there too. The producer asked him why? “Because he’s insane,” Adams replied. “We have lots of insane people on New York television,” the producer assured him. Adams left. He had made a calculated decision, I realized: he was scheduled to speak at dozens of US colleges and would be interviewed by many journalists over the next ten days – alone. Why share the limelight with someone who actually knew something about trapping and fur farming?

Postscript: A few years later, a rabbit cull was organized on the Isle of Man, a tax haven where Richard Adams had fled to protect the fortune his books had generated. An enterprising journalist decided that it would be interesting to ask the famous rabbit author for his thoughts about the cull. “You have to remember that my book is fiction,” said Mr. Adams. “In real life, rabbits are a pest.” Or as Mr. Adams told another journalist: “If I saw a rabbit in my garden, I’d shoot it.”

*NOTE: Some scientists now believe that human bifocal vision developed when our ancestors took to the trees, improving our ability to leap from one branch to another. According to this hypothesis, bifocal vision in this case did not make us better predators, it made us less-accessible prey! Subsequently, of course, it also made us much more effective predators.

***

The author is an internationally recognized defender of the fur trade. Raised in a fur-manufacturing family, he is the author of Second Nature: The Animal-Rights Controversy, the first serious critique of the animal-rights movement from an environmental and social justice perspective. Herscovici served for 20 years as Executive Vice-President of the Fur Council of Canada and is the creator of Furisgreen.com. He is now the senior researcher/writer of TruthAboutFur.com.

People I speak with are often astounded to learn that all the furs we use today are abundant. “We never use furs from endangered species and we are not depleting wildlife populations,” I explain. “In fact, the most commonly used North American furbearers are now as abundant as, or more abundant than, they have ever been.”

“How can this be?” they ask. After 400 years of commercial fur-trading, with so much urban and industrial development, how can fur-bearing animals be as plentiful as before Europeans arrived on this continent?

There are two main reasons why North American furbearers are so abundant, both of which are surprising to many. The first reason is that modern wildlife-management regulations have been remarkably successful in ensuring the responsible and sustainable use of fur-bearing animals. The second is that human activity is not always bad for wildlife.

Because neither of these facts is well known or understood, let’s take a closer look.

Effective Regulations Ensure Sustainable Use

The hunting or trapping of wild fur-bearing animals in Canada and the United States is strictly regulated by the state and provincial (or territorial) governments. Government wildlife biologists regulate the impact of hunting or trapping in a number of ways, including the setting of “open seasons” (and sometimes harvesting quotas) for different regions and species. Open seasons are timed to avoid the periods when animals are reproducing or caring for their young, and are designed to target the natural “surplus”, animals that exceed the “carrying capacity” of their habitat. Hunting and trapping seasons can be lengthened, shortened or closed completely, if necessary, to maintain a balance between wildlife populations and available habitat.

Trappers are licensed and must complete training programs before receiving their permits. These programs teach conservation principles, the proper way to use new humane trapping devices and to ensure that only the targeted species are captured, pelt-handling techniques (to avoid waste), and survival skills.

Since the 1950s, furbearer populations have been restored across North America

Trapping was not always so well managed. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, populations of beaver and other abundant furbearers were depleted by over-harvesting in some regions. With the introduction of modern wildlife management policies and regulations, especially since the 1950s, furbearer populations have been restored across North America.

It is easy to understand how government regulations can prevent over-harvesting. What is less well-known is that regulated trapping can actually help to stabilize the populations of some wildlife species. Beaver populations, for example, are naturally subject to extreme “boom-and-bust” cycles. If adequate supplies of their preferred food (e.g., willow and ash trees) are available, beaver populations can rapidly increase until all available vegetation is depleted (“eat-out”). Fighting for scarce remaining food, disease and starvation will then take their toll and beaver populations will “crash”; there may be no beavers at all in this area for many years, until suitable vegetation is restored.

Regulated trapping can smooth out these boom-and-bust cycles, keeping beaver populations in balance with available food supplies. The result is more stable and healthy beaver populations than would occur naturally.

Human Presence Can Increase Wildlife

Even less well-known than the stabilizing effect trapping can have on wildlife populations is the fact that human presence can actually benefit some animals. While the expansion of cities, farms and industry can certainly disrupt natural habitat, for some furbearers it has allowed populations to increase.

A case in point is the raccoon. Our cornfields and urban garbage have allowed raccoons to expand their population and range, including northward into much of southern Canada where they were not present before.

Raccoons, foxes and coyotes are now more abundant across North America than they have ever been

Red foxes and coyotes have also benefited from humans, in two ways. Mature temperate and boreal forests do not support an abundance of wildlife, but when farmers clear parts for pastureland, habitat is created for mice and other small rodents on which foxes and coyotes feed. Foxes and coyotes have also benefited from their ability to adapt to living in close proximity to people, while wolves – apex predators and their competitors for food – have been pushed away from human settlements.

As a result, raccoons, foxes and coyotes are now more abundant across North America than they have ever been.

Human activity can improve wildlife habitat in other surprising ways. Roads built through marshy regions – as are found across much of northern Canada – are protected with ditches that help to drain excess water from the land. Ash and willow can then grow, bringing beavers which, with their dams, create ponds that attract a wide range of other animals. This sort of habitat improvement, combined with modern wildlife management regulations, has restored abundant beaver populations across North America.

At a time when we are concerned about the depletion of many wild fish stocks and terrestrial species, the responsible and sustainable management of wild fur-bearing animals is a remarkable environmental success story. And that makes fur an excellent clothing choice for anyone concerned about protecting our natural environment for future generations.

***

FURTHER READING

Rise of the coyote: The new top dog. Nature magazine, May 16, 2012.

After 200 years, a beaver is back in New York City. New York Times, Feb. 23, 2007.

"... protection and re-introduction programs have re-established the American beaver throughout its historical range. It is now abundant." IUCN Red List.

"After a population explosion starting in the 1940s, the estimated number of raccoons in North America in the late 1980s was 15 to 20 times higher than in the 1930s, when raccoons were comparatively rare." Wikipedia, citing Raccoons: A natural history, by Samuel I. Zeveloff.

Now that recent actions by White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis have sparked discussion about the importance of tolerance in a modern, multi-cultural society, perhaps it is time to denounce another type of increasingly aggressive hate group: animal-rights extremists.

I can hear animal activists choking on their tofu stir-fry, but the facts speak for themselves: their campaigns – like those of other hate groups – almost always involve a direct attack on the rights, reputation and livelihoods of other people.

Hate groups are usually defined as organizations that promote discrimination against specific groups of people based on their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. It’s time we added "employment" to that list.

Think about it: animal activists are not satisfied with expressing their opinions or exercising their right to wear cotton, hemp and synthetics, rather than fur or other animal products. Instead, they seek to impose their views on everyone.

While they call for compassion, they often seem to be driven more by anger and hatred of people who don’t share their views.

They use sensationalist and misleading videos of dubious origin to smear the entire fur industry and everyone associated with it – the same sort of tactics employed by other hate groups. The Nazis, of course, pioneered the use of staged films to fan hatred against Jews and others.

And if propaganda doesn’t work, animal extremists – like other hate groups – aren’t shy to employ intimidation. Despite decades of misleading activist campaigning, fur is now being sold in a wider range of stores than ever, in designer collections, as trim on outerwear, in fashion accessories. If consumers agreed with the activists’ condemnation of fur, stores wouldn’t be selling it. But animal extremists do not think that consumers and retailers have a right to make such decisions for themselves.

Their response is rowdier demonstrations. Fur-wearing consumers are harangued as they enter or leave stores; they are followed down the street by angry activists. Stores are warned that the demos won’t stop until they drop fur from their offerings. Under cover of darkness, store windows are broken and locks are glued. So much for the respectful exchange of views.

The animal extremist message is clear: "Do as we say, or face the consequences." Like a mafia protection racket. Or a chilling echo of the threats and intimidation used against businesses that resisted segregationist thugs in the early days of the US Civil Rights Movement.

Elevating Animals, Degrading People

The aggressiveness of animal-extremists is fueled by their fundamentalist “animal-rights” philosophy. If you believe that killing a mink (or a cow, pig or chicken) is the moral equivalent of killing a fellow human, it is easy to justify the most radical of actions.

SEE ALSO: Why Animal Rights Activists Are Becoming More Aggressive

Unfortunately, rather than elevating the moral status of animals, such beliefs easily lead to the degradation of other people. Once again, the Nazis provide a stark warning: not only were Hitler and several of his top henchmen vegetarians, but the Third Reich was the only national government in history to implement a complete ban on the use of animals in medical research. Dr. Josef Mengele used Jews instead for his cruel experiments.

In fact, most people in our society accept the responsible use animals for food, clothing, and other purposes. As designer Karl Lagerfeld has said about activists protesting his use of fur: “For me, as long as people eat meat and wear leather, I don't get the message.”

We have shown in a previous article, "Why fur is the ethical clothing choice", that the modern fur trade fully satisfies the four criteria required for most people to accept the use of animals as ethical. The wild-fur trade is well regulated and sustainable. Research and standards promote animal welfare for both wild and farmed fur-bearers. Fur animals are fully utilized with minimal waste. And the fur trade supports rural and remote communities while providing a valuable and long-lasting natural clothing material.

I know that most "animal-rights" advocates will be shocked at being labelled as hate mongers; they will claim that they are promoting justice, not discrimination. But every hate group claims to be promoting justice for their own particular cause. Having a cause does not justify attacking the reputations and livelihoods of people who do not share your beliefs.

It is time that the people of the fur trade were recognized for their knowledge and skills in maintaining this remarkable heritage industry, and for developing one of the most responsible and sustainable animal-use industries in the world.

And it is time for the media, political leaders, and the general public to take a much harder look at the misguided and irresponsible actions of animal extremists – and to say "no" to hate groups of all stripes.

As Canadians prepare to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Confederation (July 1, 1867), and also the 375th anniversary of the founding of Montreal (May 17, 1642), this is a fine time to recall the unique role played by this country’s fur trade history.

In fact, fur trading had been practiced for hundreds – probably thousands – of years before Europeans arrived on these shores. Montagnais hunters from what is now northern Quebec, for example, were already trading fur pelts for corn, squash and other foods produced by Iroquoian farmers in the St-Lawrence valley when Jacques Cartier first visited the island of Montreal in 1535.

Fur trading with Europeans probably began when French fishermen crossed the Atlantic to exploit the extraordinary stocks of large codfish off the coast of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St-Lawrence. When Cartier landed on the coast of northern New Brunswick, in 1534, he met Indians who clearly had experience with Europeans – they held up fur pelts on sticks, eager to trade.

It wasn’t until Samuel de Champlain built his habitation, in 1608 – to found what would become Quebec City, nucleus of New France – that the North American fur trade began in earnest. In the two hundred years that followed, furs provided the incentive to explore the vast interior of the continent ... and for a long series of wars and skirmishes to control it.

In 1627, Cardinal Richelieu granted a monopoly on fur trading to The Company of 100 Associates. Monopolies were sought to justify the risks involved in purchasing and transporting trade goods from Europe, and (hopefully) returning with furs more than a year or two later. But monopolies could also thwart innovation, with serious repercussions.

Radisson & the Hudson's Bay Company

One of the most dramatic examples is the story of Pierre-Esprit Radisson. At 15 years old, Radisson was captured by Mohawks and lived in their village on Lake Champlain long enough to learn their language and woodcraft – skills that served him well when he was able to escape and return to Trois-Rivières. In 1654, with his brother-in-law, Médard Chouart des Groseilliers, he explored far to the west, into the James Bay region, returning with a rich cargo of furs, and the bold idea that vast new fur supplies might be more easily secured by bringing ships directly into the interior of the continent through Hudson’s Bay.

New routes, however, threatened the politically well-connected merchants who controlled the French fur trade. Radisson and Des Groseilliers were briefly imprisoned and their furs confiscated. When their efforts to plead their case at Court, in Paris, failed, Radisson and Des Groseilliers eventually found their way to the English Court of Charles II. There, with support from the dynamic Prince Rupert, a cousin of the King, a group of influential investors was convened and The Company of Adventurers into Hudson’s Bay was born.

Under the Royal Charter granted on May 2, 1670, Prince Rupert and his partners became “true lords and proprietors” of all the lands drained by Hudson’s Bay, about 1.5 million square miles – one of the largest real estate deals in history. This immense territory, which came to be called “Rupert's Land”, included about 40% of today's Canada and significant parts of Minnesota and North Dakota. (While no longer directly involved in fur trading, the Hudson’s Bay Company is the oldest, continuously-operating, joint-stock company in the world. The 1670 Royal Charter is now on display at the corporate headquarters, in Toronto.)

The next 90 years were marked by intense competition between French, English and American fur traders. LaSalle and other French adventurers had established a string of trading posts and forts down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, controlling “Louisiana” (named in honour of Louis XIV) and hemming in the fast-growing New England colonies. By 1739, furs represented 70% of the exports from New France. But danger threatened, as the American colonies challenged French control of the Mississippi and points west, while the Hudson’s Bay Company intercepted fur supplies that had passed through Indian trade networks to Montreal and Quebec.

The North West & American Fur Companies

The conflict came to a head with the British conquest of New France, in 1760, but this did not diminish the ferocious competitiveness of the lucrative fur trade. English, French and, especially, Scottish entrepreneurs set up the North West Company (1779), in Montreal, and pushed deeper into the continent through the St-Lawrence River and the Great Lakes, challenging the (London-based) Hudson Bay Company’s monopoly. Competition also intensified south of the St-Lawrence, with the founding of John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company (1808). In search of new fur supplies, Astor pushed westward; his Columbia River trading post at Fort Astoria (1811) was the first United States community on the Pacific coast.

The current western border between the USA and Canada reflects, to a great extent, the fur territories once controlled by the American Fur Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company. (The HBC was merged with the NWC in 1821.) In fact, it is not at all sure that the young Dominion of Canada – formed in 1867 with the confederation of the provinces of “Canada” (Ontario and Quebec), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick – would ever have expanded to include British Columbia and the Pacific Coast, had not the Hudson’s Bay Company pleaded the importance of maintaining the lucrative Vancouver Island fur trade under Canadian control.

Many North American towns and cities began as fur-trading posts, but probably none was more influenced by the fur trade than Montreal. Montreal became the continent’s most important fur-trading entrepôt because Champlain recognized its strategic position at the intersection of the St-Lawrence and Hudson (via Lake Champlain) river systems, and because the rapids at the west end of the island (Lachine) prevented European ships from venturing further upstream. The Fur Trade Museum, in Lachine, housed in a stone fur warehouse built in 1803 by North West Company stockholder Alexander Gordon, is an excellent place to learn about Montreal’s fur-trade history.

"Beaver Club" Dinners in Montreal

Traces of fur trade history are everywhere in Montreal. One of the city’s oldest remaining buildings housed the convent of the Grey Nuns, who supported their missionary work with fur trading. Beaver Hall Hill, in the downtown core, was the site of “Beaver Hall”, the home of Joseph Frobisher, one of the North West Company’s leading partners, and the host of many of the company’s raucous “Beaver Club” dinners. Perhaps most significantly, the internationally respected McGill University was founded with a £10,000 grant from James McGill, a leading fur trader and founding partner of the North West Company. The university’s main Sherbrooke Street campus stands on the site of McGill’s “Burnside Farm”, which he bequeathed for this purpose.

Montreal’s fur trade remained important into the modern era: the Hudson’s Bay Company’s warehouse and auction sales were located on Dorchester Street (now called “Rene Levesque”), until they were relocated to Toronto after the election of the (separatist) Parti Quebecois government in the late 1970s. And Montreal became one of North America’s most important fur-manufacturing centres (like New York and Toronto), with the arrival in the first decades of the 20th century of hundreds of skilled (mostly Jewish) fur craftspeople – including my own grandfather, who arrived here in 1913.

After the Second World War, the North American fur-manufacturing sector was further strengthened by immigration from Kastoria and other villages of northern Greece where fur-working had been a way of life for centuries. Montreal was also the gathering place for thousands of North American and international fur designers, manufacturers and retailers who attended the association-run Montreal NAFFEM for thirty years, until 2013.

Canada's fur trade history reflects the country's cultural mosaic at its best: First Nations, French, English, Scots, Jews, Greeks and many others have worked together for hundreds of years to build this remarkable industry – a dynamic tradition of competition and cooperation that is well worth remembering as we celebrate these important anniversaries in the history of Montreal and Canada.

This article was first published in The Villager, March 16, 2017. 

As someone brought up in the Canadian fur trade and who has spent much of the past 35 years studying the environmental ethic of North America’s founding industry, I am troubled by the arrogance and ignorance displayed by self-appointed “animal-rights” activists protesting the opening of the Canada Goose boutique in Soho.

Responding to complaints about neighbors disturbed and consumers harassed, activists Nathan Semmel and Leonardo Anguiano recently argued in these pages that “it is solely the vile ethics of the Canada Goose corporation that brought about our presence.” (“Call of the Wild: Why we protest Canada Goose,” talking point, March 2):

By “vile ethics,” they mean that Canada Goose uses animal products — goose down and coyote fur — to make their remarkably warm parkas.

Goose down and fur are two of nature’s best insulators, but it is not surprising that these protesters object. Most of them are — or aspire to be — vegans, and embrace the radical “animal-rights” philosophy, which means they oppose any use of animals, even for food. Most Americans, however, do eat meat, fish, dairy and eggs. Most of us also wear leather, wool and silk. This does not mean we condone the mistreatment of animals. Research confirms that most people believe that humans do have a right to use animals, but only if four important criteria are respected — namely, that animals should be used sustainably, humanely, for an important purpose and with minimal waste.

Let’s see how the use of coyote fur stacks up against these widely accepted ethical criteria.

Sustainability: Only part of the natural surplus produced in abundant wildlife populations is used for fur today, never endangered species. This is assured by strictly enforced state, national and international regulations. Coyotes are highly abundant and expanding their range across North America; they are, in fact, the number-one predator problem for ranchers in many regions. There are also increasingly frequent reports of coyotes devouring pet dogs and cats. And even if we did not use fur, coyotes (and other predators) often must be managed to protect nesting birds, the eggs of sea turtles, and other endangered species. When fur prices do not provide sufficient incentive to control coyote populations, several states (and Canadian provinces) have been obliged to offer bounties. But if we have to cull some of these animals, surely it is ethical to use them.

Humaneness: Millions of dollars have been invested over the past 35 years in scientific research to ensure that humane methods are used to capture wild, furbearing animals. Many coyotes are now taken with quick-killing devices. Others are taken with live-holding traps designed to minimize injuries to the animals. These are the same traps used by biologists to capture and release wolves, Canadian lynx and other animals, unharmed, for radio-collaring (for research) or reintroduction into regions where they were previously eliminated. Clearly, these are not the diabolical instruments that activists would have us believe. Nor are nature’s ways of controlling wildlife populations — starvation and disease — necessarily preferable. A coyote with sarcoptic mange (a parasitic mite) may scratch itself raw for weeks before dying. Nature is not Disneyland. If humaneness is the concern, modern trapping methods may actually reduce suffering, by maintaining more stable and healthy wildlife populations than would occur naturally.

Important Use: Animal activists claim that the killing of coyotes or other animals for fur is “unnecessary”, and therefore morally indefensible. Leaving aside the tricky question of determining which, if any, products are really “necessary,” humans do need clothing, and fur is a natural, long-lasting and ultimately biodegradable material. By contrast, fake furs and other synthetics promoted by animal activists are generally made from petrochemicals, a nonrenewable resource. More troubling, recent research reveals that synthetic microfibers can cause considerable harm to wildlife. According to EcoWatch: “When washed, plastic microfibers break off and a single jacket can produce up to 250,000 fibers in washing-machine effluent. Less than 1 millimeter in size, they make their way through wastewater plants and into marine environments where they have been found to enter the food chain. Microfibers make up 85 percent of human-made debris on shorelines around the world, according to a 2011 study.” Perhaps natural fur and down are not such frivolous choices after all.

No Waste: Most of us are comfortable wearing leather because it is “the envelope that dinner came in,” but we may wonder what happens to the rest of the animals that provide fur. In fact, beaver and muskrat are often eaten by northern Cree and other trappers and their families in remote regions where store-bought food is very expensive and alternate income may be hard to come by. Raccoons, opossums and other furbearing animals also provide food in more southern regions. And while coyotes and other predators are not usually eaten by humans, their carcasses are returned to the bush where they feed birds, mice and other animals through the winter, when food is scarce. Nothing is wasted.

This short review shows that the North American fur trade does satisfy the four criteria that determine whether the use of animals is morally acceptable for most people.

Furthermore, while we all “care” about nature, most of us now live in cities with little direct knowledge about what really happens in the wild. Activists protesting against Canada Goose, for example, claim that “trapped coyote mothers leave behind starving pups.” They are apparently unaware that trapping occurs in late fall and winter when the young of the year are no longer dependent upon their parents.

Trappers, by contrast, live close to nature and have the knowledge — and a direct interest — to sound the alarm when wildlife habitat is threatened by industrial activity. It is trappers, for example, who lobby and work with timber companies to maintain uncut forest corridors for wildlife around waterways or important nesting areas. It is the destruction of habitat — not hunters or trappers — that threatens the survival of wildlife.

While animal activists like to see themselves as “progressive,” their words and actions reveal an arrogant disregard for the knowledge and values of the hard-working rural people who feed and clothe us.

None of this means that anyone is obliged to wear fur. But it does cast doubt on activist claims to have a “moral” justification for imposing their personal choices on the rest of us. If those promoting the radical “animal-rights” philosophy want to maintain any credibility, they would do well do show more tolerance toward those who make different choices. Too often, while preaching “compassion,” their actions seem to be driven by ideological fundamentalism, aggression and “alternate facts.” Surely, we have enough of that already in Washington.

At a time when we, as consumers, are being urged to “care for our planet” and make environmentally-responsible choices, we should take a closer look at wild furs. And the closer we look, the more impressive are the environmental benefits we see. While all the furs we use today are eco-logical, wild furs are to clothing what “organic”, “free-range”, and “100-mile-diet” are to dinner.

Here are 5 top reasons why wild furs are an excellent choice for anyone who wants to adopt a “greener” life-style:

1. Like all fur, wild-sourced pelts provide a naturally warm, lightweight, durable, and ultimately biodegradable clothing material. After all, fur evolved over millions of years to become one of the most effective insulators we know.  And, of course, fur is also remarkably soft, comfortable and beautiful!

2. The wild furs we use today come from abundant populations, never from endangered species. Trapping is strictly controlled by state and provincial governments to ensure that we take only part of the surplus produced by nature. Most species produce more young each year than their habitat can support to maturity. We can use part of that “surplus” without depleting the population. In financial terms, it’s like living on the “interest” that nature provides, without depleting our “capital”. This is known to environmentalists as “the sustainable use of renewable natural resources”, a key conservation principle promoted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and other conservation authorities.

3. The populations of many furbearing species would have to be controlled even if we did not use the fur. Overpopulated beavers flood roads, fields, and forest habitat. Raccoon, coyote and fox populations must be controlled to protect sea turtle eggs, ground-nesting birds and other vulnerable or endangered species. Rapidly expanding coyote populations are also the number-one predator threat for sheep and cattle ranchers. Raccoons, foxes and skunks can carry rabies and other dangerous diseases into urban areas. When animals must be culled to protect property, to prevent the spread of disease, or for any other reason, it is more respectful to use them. Furthermore, without a market for fur, these management efforts would have to be financed by tax-payers.

SEE ALSO: WILDLIFE CONTROL EXPERT OR TRAPPER? WHO YOU GONNA CALL?

4. More than 35 years of scientific research and trap testing ensure that the most humane possible methods are used to capture furbearing animals. In fact, government-regulated trapping now often helps to reduce suffering, by maintaining healthier and more stable populations of wildlife than would occur naturally. If humaneness is a concern, modern trapping techniques are generally preferable to disease, starvation, and the “boom-and-bust” cycles that are nature’s ways of pruning back overpopulated beavers, muskrats, and other species. While farm-raised fur animals receive excellent care, some people feel more comfortable knowing that the animals we use live freely in their natural state until the moment when they are captured. In this sense, wild fur is the ultimate “free-range” clothing material.

5. Many furbearing animals also provide food for aboriginal and other trappers and their families. Beavers and muskrats are important food sources for the Cree people of northern Canada. Raccoons, opossums, and other species are also eaten in many parts of North America. Animals that are not eaten by trappers and their families are returned to the bush where they feed mice, birds and other animals through the winter, when food is in short supply. Nothing is wasted.

Wild fur also provides important income for aboriginal and other people living in rural or remote regions where employment opportunities may be limited. Not least important: the income from wild fur depends upon maintaining natural habitat, and thus provides an incentive for maintaining wilderness areas. One of the unintended consequences of anti-fur campaigning is that, by eliminating markets (for sealskins, for example), they force aboriginal communities in northern Canada to open their territories to more oil and gas exploration, mining and other activities that can seriously disrupt wildlife and their habitat. In fact, trappers in many regions are working with government and industry to minimize the negative impacts of logging and other resource exploitation. For example, they lobby to maintain corridors and buffer zones of uncut timber around lakes and streams that wildlife depend upon, and they identify the nesting areas of eagles and other sensitive species so they can be protected. We all care about nature, but trappers are our eyes and ears on the land – the people who can sound the alarm when nature is threatened.

As this brief summary shows, wild fur is an excellent choice for anyone who cares about nature. Ironically, the “faux fur” and other synthetic textiles promoted by many “animal-rights” activists are usually made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource. But because most people – and most media – are now in big cities, the trappers’ story is rarely heard.

FROM OUR WEBSITE: FUR PRODUCTION: TRAPPING

I received a phone call the other day from a very frightened fur retailer. Two young women had come into his store while he was serving a customer and begun lecturing him about the evils of selling fur. He had tried to stay cool and asked them to leave, several times, but they kept at him until, finally, he lost it and said things he wasn’t proud of. They had filmed him too; now his outburst was on an activist website and his Facebook page had been bombarded with comments accusing him of being a sexist thug.

“Am I finished?” he asked, shaken. “That’s not me, but they were so aggressive; honestly, I was frightened.” I told him to remove the threatening posts from his Facebook page – but to take screen-grabs first, for the record. I also advised him to make a police report about the women who had harassed him, and to ask the police to keep an eye on his store at night. (The windows of several fur stores in the same town were broken in the weeks that followed.)

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. An outerwear store that sells fur-trimmed parkas in Vancouver has endured rowdy protests several times a week for more than a year. Activists now often follow fur-wearers down the street, haranguing them. DxE (“Direct Action Everywhere”) activists invade department stores, intimidating consumers and thumbing their noses at store security. At the opening of new Canada Goose stores in New York and Toronto, protesters carried “F*ck Canada Goose” posters. (So much for compassion and intelligent dialogue!) “Fur police” recently patrolled the streets of Hamburg, Germany, lecturing fur-wearers and giving them “tickets”.

READ ALSO: "Meat of the Matter: Peace-loving avengers," by Dan Murphy, for Dairy Herd Management.

Fur is still a favorite target but any animal-based business can find itself under attack. An infuriating new tactic of animal rights activists is to blitz commercial Facebook pages with negative ratings and comments, as a Vancouver chef recently discovered when he added seal meat to his “sustainable and cultural foods” menu. (Ironically, activists often claim that the seal hunt is immoral because only the fur is used!)

Here are 5 reasons why animal rights activists are becoming more aggressive ... and why it will likely get worse before it gets better.

1. Aggression Works

Activists have learned that many retail stores – even those of large corporations – have a low tolerance for confrontation. Things were different when most furs were sold by furriers running multi-generational family businesses; fur was what they knew, and they defended it with passion. With fur now popular for trim and fashion accessories, it is sold in a much wider range of stores.

This is putting fur on more people than ever before, but it also makes retailing more vulnerable: if fur represents only a small fraction of your sales but generates 99% of your security and PR problems, caving in to PETA is a tempting option. Unfortunately, the message to animal rights activists is that threats and intimidation work.

2. Pop Culture

If you have seen a music video recently -- or follow much of what passes for political debate these days -- you understand that the vulgar, arrogant and often aggressive tone of animal rights activists (“F*ck Fur!”) is very much in tune with certain elements of contemporary culture. And because there’s no sign of popular culture becoming much more polite any time soon, we can expect the arrogance and aggressiveness of these activists to intensify too.

3. Animal Rights Activists Are Getting Frustrated

Cleveland Amory, founder of the Fund for Animals, began campaigning against the fur trade in the late 1960s, almost 50 years ago. Protests intensified in the 1980s and then, again, with the emergence of media-savvy organizations like PETA. The traditional fur coat was also challenged by more casual lifestyles and the availability of less expensive winter clothing materials.

But just when it looked like Western consumers were abandoning their furs, the trade reinvented itself. Suddenly fur is everywhere, not only on 70% of designer runways, but in the streets – as trim on coats and parkas, on handbags, vests, scarves and boots. As trim and accessories, fur is more affordable and is being worn by more young people than ever.

Like old-time Stalinists frustrated with the “false consciousness” of workers who didn’t support The Revolution, many activists have concluded that, if moral persuasion isn’t working, it’s time for more vigorous methods. “As long as they do the right thing, we don’t really care why they’ve done it,” says PETA executive vice president Tracy Reiman when asked whether companies give up fur to avoid harassment, rather than because they share PETA’s views.

4. Social Media Encourage an Escalation of Emotion

Animal rights activists have always used disturbing images, but mainstream media rarely broadcast the most gruesome of them. In the Brave New World of social media, however, the gorier the better. As PETA's Tracy Reiman says, “… we put out a video of rabbits that are having their fur ripped out, and everybody watches it.”

It is not hard to understand why normally compassionate people would be horrified by some of the images circulating on the Internet. If I thought these images really represented the fur trade, I would be against it too. So don't be surprised that some idealistic young people decide it’s time to take stronger action to end such (apparent) atrocities.

The anonymity of social media also encourages more radical and polarized opinions, in all types of politics.

5. “Animal Rights” Is a Fundamentalist Ideology

The previous four points provide ample explanation for the more aggressive tone of animal rights activists. A more troubling question is whether the “animal-rights” philosophy itself may inevitably lead to more aggressive behaviour.

Despite all the media coverage of PETA’s antics, few people – journalists included – understand the profound chasm separating traditional “animal welfare” values from the radical and comparatively new “animal rights” doctrine. Animal welfare refers to our responsibility to minimize suffering for the animals we use. Hopefully everyone reading this post agrees with this. Animal rights, by contrast, says that humans have no right to kill or use animals at all, even for food or important medical research.

A more troubling question is whether the “animal-rights” philosophy itself may inevitably lead to more aggressive behaviour.

But if we truly believe that killing and eating an animal is the moral equivalent of murdering and eating another human being, then how far should we go to stop such “crimes”? Seen this way, activists who become more aggressive or even commit illegal acts are not “going too far”; rather, they are reading their animal-rights philosophers correctly.

“Animal rights” -- like other fundamentalist doctrines -- does not allow for respect or tolerance of differing views. In this sense, the increasing aggression of animal rights activists is not an accident or an aberration. But if intolerance and aggression are the logical conclusions of “animal rights”, maybe it’s time we took a much more critical look at this radical new philosophy. This will be the subject of a future article.

Earlier this year I wrote a blog post listing “5 reasons why PETA won't make me ditch my Canada Goose”. For anyone who has been living under a rock (or in some tropical paradise), Canada Goose is a popular brand of amazingly warm, down-filled coats with coyote fur around the hood to protect your face from winter’s fiercest blasts.

The article included a photo of me with Maggie, my 10-year-old Golden-Lab rescue dog. In response, several readers asked, sarcastically, why I hadn't used Maggie to trim my parka instead.

Then, in the past few weeks, activists protesting the opening of the first Canada Goose bricks-and-mortar stores – in Toronto, New York, and London (UK) – deployed the same tactic, bringing their dogs to the demos. If we are not ready to use our pets for fur, they argued, how can we justify using coyotes?

At first glance, they raise an interesting dilemma: since Maggie and the coyote are both canines, it seems morally inconsistent to love and pamper one while killing and “exploiting” the other. But is it really?

Here are five reasons why my dog is not a coyote, and why wearing fur is not like wearing your pet:

1. Coyotes don’t sleep in our beds

Fact is, dogs in much of North America and Europe – at least in urban areas – have become members of the family. Dogs have long helped humans with our work; they have been our devoted companions. But now they have moved into our homes, and for many families they have become surrogate children. Parents living with teenagers may sometimes feel that dogs are, in fact, preferable to human children. Be that as it may, it is clear that pets dogs are no longer on the outside looking in, but have become an integral part of the family. Using dogs for food or clothing has therefore become taboo, akin to cannibalism. Trees, plants, and other animals – including coyotes – are in the other category: consumables. That’s how the world works. (Sorry, PETA.)

2. Dogs chose us to protect them

Dogs split away from their wolf ancestors at least 15,000 years ago, maybe much earlier. And, as Stephen Budiansky (The Covenant of the Wild: Why Animals Chose Domestication) and others have argued, it is very likely that dogs chose us, rather than the other way around. According to this hypothesis, wolves that were not aggressive enough to compete in their pack may have approached human settlements, attracted by bones and other food that humans discarded. Because the most docile animals were more likely to be tolerated, there was a “natural selection” for non-aggressive animals that accepted a subordinate role in their new human “packs”. The wild coyote is a very different beast. As one trapper told me about a coyote he found in his trap: “When I looked into his eyes, I was chilled by the cold, evil stare; this was nothing like a dog!” Only people who have had no close contact with wolves, coyotes or other wild canines can believe that they are “dogs”.

3. Dogs and coyotes occupy different spheres of moral concern

While, theoretically, all humans should enjoy equal consideration, we are generally more concerned about our own children than about the neighbour’s children. And more about our neighbours than about people in another city or half-way around the globe. Without such “degrees of moral concern” we would not be able to function at all, knowing that children are suffering hunger and abuse in many parts of the world while we sip our lattes. Similarly (whatever PETA would have us believe) we are more likely to swerve to avoid hitting a child – even on a tree-lined road; even if it means risking our lives – than we would for a dog in our path. Again: rats, bees and other social animals live harmoniously in large groups, but will tear to shreds any stranger that wanders into their midst. It seems to be consistent with natural law to treat those closest to us differently.

4. If we kill coyotes, we should use them

Coyotes are highly abundant and have expanded their range across most of North America. They are now the number one predator problem for ranchers and, when fur prices do not provide sufficient incentive to keep populations in check, state and provincial governments may offer bounties to encourage hunting and trapping. If we have to cull coyotes, surely it is more respectful – more ethical – to use them. Of course, domesticated dogs and cats can also over-populate, and they too are culled. In modern, Western societies we collect and put down millions of unwanted pets in “humane shelters” rather than leave them hungry, sick and abused in the streets as is done in many parts of the world. That we choose not to use the fur or other parts of so many unwanted pets probably reflects our wealth (we can afford to waste these resources) and the special relationship we have with dogs and cats, more than any moral imperative.

5. Dogs, like their human protectors, have been removed – or at least insulated – from nature

In nature, most plants and animals produce more young each year than their habitat can support to maturity; those that don’t survive provide food for the others. This is the great cycle of life. And like it or not, people are part of this cycle. We too need resources from our natural environment to survive, and we too will feed the worms in the end (unless we attempt to shirk our debt with cremation, but even then our basic chemical components will be recycled). In ecological terms, there is nothing unusual about using coyote fur on parkas. What is unusual is the abhorrence we feel in Western society about making mitts with Rover or Prince – or Maggie. Traditionally, dogs had to earn their keep: pulling sleds, herding sheep, killing rats and other “vermin”, protecting property. When they died, their fur and leather were valuable in societies too poor to waste useful resources. But, as mentioned in our first point, dogs have become part of our families, and in that sense have been removed from nature. We found Maggie at the Montreal SPCA when she was one year old; she had been there a month and came close to being put down. Happily, the number of dogs euthanized in North American shelters has been greatly reduced, thanks to spay-neuter programs and “Adopt, Don’t Shop” campaigns. But we cannot manage wildlife populations with spay-neuter programs. And we cannot live without using the resources that nature provides. The status of “honorary humans” that we have applied to our dogs in wealthy Western societies, cannot be extended to all of creation.

SEE ALSO: DON'T FEEL BAD ABOUT THE COYOTE FUR ON YOUR CANADA GOOSE JACKET

When I mentioned that I was writing this article, a friend suggested a sixth point: she said that we can’t use our dogs for clothing or meat because “they love us”. Unfortunately, as much as I love my dog, I am not at all sure that this sentiment is really reciprocated. I suspect that Maggie’s interest in me is directly proportional to the quantity of kibble, table scraps, ear scratching and interesting walks that I provide. But then, perhaps the love that humans share is not all that different?

So what can we conclude? Animal activists argue that it is an arbitrary distinction to pamper some animals while “exploiting” others. But this short analysis suggests that such distinctions are not so much “arbitrary” as they are culturally determined; they are based on wealth, urbanization, the changing nature of the family, and other socio-cultural factors. Aboriginal people in North America – and traditional societies everywhere – used dog fur and leather, as many still do. Most dogs used to live and work outside; we have brought them into our homes and families. But that doesn’t mean we don’t need to use plants and animals and other resources that nature provides.

So the "moral inconsistency" raised by pampering some animals while exploiting others is more apparent than real. And Maggie would almost surely agree, if she were capable of this sort of rational thought; she certainly appreciates the meat, bones and other animal products we offer.

Ironically, animal-rights purists (including PETA) now also oppose the keeping of pets, which they denounce as a form of paternalistic slavery. I am not sure that Maggie would agree.

***

RECOMMENDED READ: Animals deserve respect, but they are property – not people. By Andrew Lawton, Global News, May 26, 2017.

Unfortunately, this could happen to anyone working with fur these days, especially retailers selling any sort of fur or fur-trimmed products.

A veteran North American retail furrier – who shall remain nameless here, to protect the innocent – has participated for the past ten years in a high-profile fund-raising fashion show, in support of a local charity. About a month before this year’s show, he spoke with the organizers who confirmed that they were looking forward to working with him again. Then the animal-rights bullies showed up.

Just two weeks before the event, he received a call from the fashion-show producer. She informed him that the Events Committee had decided they could not include his products in the show this year. “One of the sponsors is against fur,” she said, as if this explained everything. The committee had made their decision and nothing could be done, she told him bluntly.

And that might have been the end of the story, except this retailer is not the sort who likes to be told that “nothing can be done” ... especially when it involves mindless kowtowing to anti-fur bigots. Sensing that the show producer was not open to discussion, he went above her head and contacted the charity’s Events Coordinator. What he did next should be an inspiration to all furriers – and, indeed, to everyone who believes in democracy.

Here is a summary:

1. First, he introduced himself and explained that his company had supported this charity event since its inception, a decade ago.
2. Then, he suggested that it wasn’t wise for a medical charity like theirs (they support palliative care) to give in to activist pressure tactics. Animal-rights bullies also oppose laboratory animal research, he reminded her. PETA-boss Ingrid Newkirk is on record saying that she opposes animal research even if it can find cures for AIDS or other terrible diseases. (He had the Event Coordinator’s attention now.)
3. And what about the retailers who were showing wool and leather products? Would they also be banned from the show if that was the next activist demand? (Hmmm ... maybe this wasn’t so simple after all?)
4. Then he asked what they were serving for dinner for the fashion evening ... (She was chuckling now.)
5. It was time to drive home his main argument: “Listen,” he told her. “We’re not saying that everyone has to wear fur...or leather…or eat meat and dairy either. Each of us can have our own opinions and make our own decisions. Isn’t that what democracy is all about? But that doesn’t give us a right to impose our ideas on everyone else!”
6. Finally, he promised to send her a link to a recent Truth About Fur blog post explaining how the modern trade is regulated and why fur is a responsible and ethical fashion choice.

She promised to speak with her superiors. And, sure enough, 24 hours later the retailer received a call from the charity’s CEO. It was Friday afternoon.

"Not the Way We Do Things"

“I wanted to call before the weekend so you wouldn’t have to worry; you’re back in the show,” she said. The activists were not “sponsors” of the event; they had bought a table, like many others. In any case, the Committee should never have made this sort of policy decision without consulting with her. “This is not the way we do things,” she said. The charity appreciated the support his company had offered for so many years; they were delighted that he was ready to participate again. Have a lovely weekend!

Two weeks later, the fashion-show evening was a wonderful success, with almost 500 people in attendance. “I was pleased to see that several of the charity’s board members placed bids for the fur scarf we contributed to the silent auction,” says the retailer.

“I was worried that the activists would make a fuss when my fur scene came on,” he says. “But there was nothing but applause. I found out later that the activists had cancelled their table when they learned that they couldn’t impose their will on the organizers. See how phony their support really was all along!”

The retailer sent a note to the CEO after the show, congratulating her on a wonderful evening – and thanking her for having the intelligence and integrity not to give in to the activists’ bullying tactics.

With fur season revving up again, we hope that his little story will provide encouragement to any retailer who is harassed by activists. Truth About Fur will be preparing a “tool kit” of resources you can use to defend your business, including blog posts like the one cited above.

And if you have a story about tactics that have worked for pushing back against activist bullies, please share it with us!

SEE ALSO: STANDING UP TO ANTI-HUNTING BULLIES - A CASE STUDY FROM ONTARIO

A recent on-line, anti-trapping rant by Born Free USA boss Adam Roberts ("What kind of person still traps wild animals?", Huffington Post, Sept. 7, 2016) underscores how trappers are on the front line in the war against humans using animals – a war in which the weapons of choice are misleading images, inflammatory rhetoric, and exploiting the information gap between rural and urban cultures.

Roberts' attack drives home how important it is to explain, again and again, the vital role trappers play in responsible wildlife management and conservation.

Like other "animal-rights" groups, the folks at Born Free rage against a wide range of animal-use activities. This time, as part of their "Victims of Vanity 2" campaign, they are promoting an “undercover” trap-line video showing “atrocities” that they claim “occur regularly across America”.

“What kind of person purposely destroys a beaver dam and sets a ‘wall of death’ of Conibear traps," asks Roberts, "knowing that the unsuspecting beavers will return to repair their handiwork – only to be possibly smashed across their abdomens and drowned?”

The insinuation is that such traps cause terrible suffering. Born Free's own video, however, shows beavers that have clearly been struck by the trap bar across the back of the neck, breaking cervical vertebrae and causing rapid death, just as this quick-killing trap is intended to do. These traps were developed through several decades of (on-going) scientific research to provide the most humane possible methods for controlling wildlife populations.

North America’s world-leading humane-trap research program has provided the scientific basis for comprehensive state and provincial trapping regulations, trapper-training programs, ISO standards, Best Management Practices, and the Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards.

SEE ALSO: Neil Jotham: A life dedicated to humane trapping

Thanks to this pioneering work, the time-to-death produced by quick-killing traps like those shown in Born Free's video is now measured in seconds. Roberts knows, however, that most of his readers live in cities and have little real contact with nature. People who find their meat neatly wrapped in cellophane on grocery store counters are easily shocked by pictures of dead animals, no matter how humanely they were euthanized – especially when cued with sufficiently emotional rhetoric.

Similarly, the live-holding devices used for capturing larger predators – like the coyote shown in Born Free's video – are not diabolical instruments of “torture”. Modern, live-holding foot traps are used by wildlife biologists to capture and release – unharmed – wolves, lynx, river otters and other animals for radio-collaring or reintroduction into regions where they were previously extirpated. To claim, as Roberts does, that such traps “have remained relatively unchanged for 400 years” is nonsense.

Should We Kill At All?

But what about the bigger question Roberts implicitly raises: should we really be killing wild animals at all?

In fact, there are many reasons why wildlife populations often must be managed. Overpopulated beavers can completely “eat out” vegetation in their region; the population will then crash and there may be no beavers at all for many years. Regulated trapping can smooth out these boom-and-bust cycles, maintaining healthier and more stable beaver populations. This is one reason why biologists believe there are now as many beavers in North America as there have ever been. There can, however, be too much of a good thing: beaver dams in the wrong places can flood roads, fields, and forest habitat. When your basement (driveway, back yard) is flooded, who’re ya gonna call: Mr. Roberts ... or your local trappers’ association?

Meanwhile, coyotes are the number-one predator problem for sheep and cattle ranchers, and many states and provinces have been obliged to offer bounties to keep their populations in check. Coyote, fox and raccoon populations are also culled to protect endangered ground-nesting birds or sea-turtle eggs. Overpopulated foxes, skunks and raccoons are prime vectors for rabies and other diseases that can be transmitted to humans and pets. For these and many other reasons, there will always be a need for trapping, whether or not anyone buys fur. Without a market for fur, however, these management efforts would be paid for by the government – i.e., by tax-payers – as they now are in many parts of Europe.

SEE ALSO: Why fur is the ethical clothing choice

Trappers protect nature in other ways that are not often publicly recognized. While we all “care” about nature, most of us now live in cities. Trappers are our eyes and ears on the land, sounding the alarm when nature is threatened by inappropriate resource extraction or industrial activity. Trappers' associations across North America are on the front lines to ensure that forestry practices respect the needs of wildlife, for example by leaving a swath of uncut trees along watercourses. And, like the canary in the mine, trappers are the first to spot changes such as reduced reproduction rates among mink that may signal industrial pollution upstream. Harvesting data, including the sex and age distribution trends, provide vital information about the health of our wildlife populations.

Most important of all, nature is not a museum. Most wildlife species produce more young each year than their habitat can support to maturity. The ones that don’t survive feed those that do. We are part of nature and we too can make use of the surpluses that nature produces – year after year, generation after generation – so long as we protect the habitats and ecosystems that provide those surpluses. This is called “the sustainable use of renewable natural resources”, a central conservation principle promoted by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and other conservation authorities. (By contrast, the synthetic materials that animal activists would have us wear are usually derived from petroleum, a non-renewable resource.)

Animal Abuse

Does all this give us the right to abuse animals? Absolutely not.

The Born Free video also shows a trapped coyote being kicked, prompting Roberts to ask, "What kind of person watches a tethered and helpless coyote writhe in pain and distress, unable to move because of the intensely unforgiving steel jaws clamped to her paw, kicks her in the side, and then finally shoots her in the chest so that her lungs fill with blood, and she dies a miserable, suffocating death?"

Most trappers would be disgusted by this scene. There is no excuse for kicking an animal, ever. Furthermore – Roberts' "intensely unforgiving" rhetoric aside – every trappers' association and trapper-training manual teaches that live-trapped animals should be killed quickly and humanely with a direct shot to the head. But this completely unacceptable behavior of one individual does not give Roberts or Born Free the right to smear the reputations of more than 200,000 North American trappers.

On the contrary, as society becomes more interested in protecting our natural environment, it is time that we learn more about these remarkable and knowledgeable men and women – the small minority among us who continue to live close to the land.

What kind of person still traps today? Far from the grotesque caricatures that animal activists like to portray, in many real and practical ways, today’s trappers are the true guardians of nature.