My story
I would like to work toward a national ban on the fur industry, picking up on the global and national momentum around fur-ban legislation. Many countries, cities, and companies have banned farming, trapping, and/or selling of fur in the last decade. It's time for the U.S. to do the same.
Fashion is often seen as frivolous and about surface and vanity. Because of this, it is often not taken seriously and therefore the massive impacts are overlooked, and that trickles up to Washington. I'd like to create incentives for American sustainable and ethical fashion businesses. Notorious bad-guy Richard Berman (Berman and Company) is already a hired gun for the fur industry lobbying on their behalf.
About banning fur
Every year, more than 1 billion animals such as rabbits, foxes, seals, minks, and dogs, are killed for their pelts. Depending on the size of the garment, up to 100 animals or more may be killed for a single coat. The majority of fur is obtained from animals raised on farms but some are trapped and killed in the wild. Fur farms are dismal, often filthy places with inhumane and cruel conditions.
Fur farming bans are becoming more common around the world. More and more countries are banning fur farming, fur sales, or forcing farms to adopt stricter regulations on the treatment of the animals on fur farms. The first country to ban fur farming was the United Kingdom in 2000. Austria banned fur farming in 2004 and the Netherlands, which is the EU’s second largest mink producer, passed a ban on mink farming in 2012. Croatia, Slovenia, Norway, the Chech Republic, Luxembourg, Belgium, Serbia, Macedonia, Japan, Belgium, and Bosnia and Herzegovina all have full or partial bans on fur farming. In 2018, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Berkeley, California banned the sale and manufacturing of fur within their city limits.
Fur farming is also extremely harmful to the environment. Millions of pounds of feces are produced annually which pollutes local rivers and streams. Additionally, the chemicals used on fur is so toxic that the fur industry is now ranked as one of the world’s five worst industries for toxic-metal pollution.
Currently, fur farming is legal and very poorly regulated in the United States. There are no federal laws to protect animals on these fur farms and the cruel practice of raising animals to be slaughtered for their pelts continues unregulated. Most animal protection laws deal with protecting animals in the wild and do not have jurisdiction over fur farms. The Fur Products Labeling Act and the Dog and Cat Fur Protection Act mandates that that garments with fur be properly labeled and prohibits dog and cat fur trade in the U.S. These laws were passed, in large part, because of the alleged killing of dogs and cats in China for their fur. We need a national law banning fur sales, distribution, and manufacturing and outlaw the practice of fur farming.
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