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Fur factory farms are revolting places filled with sick, stressed animals. Unable to engage in natural behaviour, the sensitive animals often become so stressed and frustrated by the confinement that they mutilate themselves, chewing on their own legs or tails. At the end of their short lives, they are killed in gruesome ways. Workers poison, gas, electrocute, or drown them – or even skin them alive.
Fur factory farms also pose a serious public health risk. When animals are confined next to each other in wire cages, it’s easy for diseases to spread through the exchange of urine, excrement, pus, and blood. As minks are particularly susceptible to respiratory illnesses, mink farms around the world are becoming dangerous breeding grounds for diseases and have been identified as COVID-19 hotspots.
Leather Destroys the Planet
The BFC has acknowledged that we’re facing a climate catastrophe, yet it has so far failed to implement a ban on environmentally destructive leather products. Animal agriculture, which includes the leather industry, is responsible for nearly one-fifth of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, and turning skin into leather requires significant energy and dangerous chemicals, including formaldehyde, coal-tar derivatives, and cyanide-based oils, dyes, and finishes.
At slaughterhouses, cows killed for leather may be skinned and dismembered while they’re still conscious – after having endured castration, tail-docking, and dehorning, without any painkillers, on farms.
Sustainable and animal-friendly vegan leather can be made from the prickly pear cactus, mushroom, apple, pineapple, and other innovative materials.