January 17th, 2003

That loving cat or dog sitting by your feet may not be the only cat and dog you own. Check your wardrobe and your children’s toy box. You may be the unwitting owner of cat and dog fur from Asia.

More than two million cats and dogs are killed mainly in China (but also Thailand and the Philippines) each year solely for their fur and skins. Raised under deplorable conditions and killed either by stabbing or hanging, these pathetic creatures are then turned into full length coats, fur trim on sweaters or linings in ski boots and gloves, realistic figurines of sleeping cats, hair bows and a host of other objects. Purposefully mislabeled with bogus names like "Asian wolf, corsac fox, Asian jackal" or no name at all or dyed in bright colors to appear to be "faux fur" or dyed to appear to be more acceptable fur, German shepherds, golden retrievers and mixed breeds die daily for a business that represents this loathsome consumer fraud.

More than two years ago, investigators from the Humane Society of the United States/Humane Society International, America’s largest animal protection organization went undercover in Asia to track the raising and slaughter of these hapless creatures.
Video footage from the work left reporters who saw it speechless. In one instance, a German shepherd tethered by a metal noose in Harbin China wagged his tail, never giving up hope of his future until he was stabbed to death. Before he was even dead, the butcher began to skin him alive.

In other footage, cats in a cage watched in horror as a cat is hanged within the cage in front of other animals. And in other graphic scenes, investigators documented football field sized warehouses piled to the ceiling with approximately 50,000 to 100,000 cat pelts at animal by product factories in China.

As a result of this daring investigation, the US Congress quickly banned the import and export of dog furs and skins into America. This loss of a major market prompted Asian merchants to put their energies into the European scene (Russia is the only other market for the cat and dog fur trade).

These items are everywhere. On the Ramblas in Spain investigators purchased fur that under forensic testing turned out to be cat fur. In the markets of Netherlands, Bont voor Dieren (a Dutch animal protection group) purchased a sweater with trim that in DNA tests turned out to be dog. A red hair bow was also dog as well as a sleeping cat figurine. In Austria, cat fur is sold in homeopathic shops with the alleged characteristics of having an electromagnetic field that helps arthritis. In Copenhagen Denmark, dog fur was sold in a crafts shop. In France, Nanterre police acting on a tip raided a warehouse and found cat skins buried under a pile of assorted other animal skins. In another instance in France, a veterinary service discovered 1,500 cat pelts from China held by a merchant intending to export them for the manufacture of toys. In Germany, Humane Society investigators bought full length coats made out of dog fur. Chinese merchants also bragged to the investigators that they use dog skins in shoes and handbags for Europe!

Rawhide chew toys are a dog’s favorite treat. But Humane Society investigators found that chew sticks from Thailand may contain bits of skin from a variety of animals including dogs!

On November 27, the Swedish minister for Agriculture and Consumer Affairs in a meeting of the European Council on Agriculture called for a complete ban in the European Union of the import, export and sales of cat and dog fur and skins. Backing her up in this request were the ministers from Germany, Italy, UK, France, Denmark, Greece, Austria and the Netherlands. This is clearly a weighted majority. Yet, European Commissioner David Byrne continues to argue that this is not an issue for the EU to control. It is up to individual countries to ban this, he contends.

I do not believe this is accurate. The Danish Attorney General has sent a letter to Byrne indicating that she believes this is an EU wide matter. I strongly support this view on the basis that the trade in cat and dog fur represents massive consumer fraud, and as such the EU has the authority under internal market considerations to ban the export, import and sale of these products. Consumers are unaware of what they may be purchasing and therefore are inadvertently fueling a trade that kills millions of companion animals and lines the pocket of these cowardly merchants.

While Italy has banned such sales and the French and Swedish legislatures are considering this issue, this must be addressed on an EU-wide basis because of porous borders and the ease in which these items make their way from country to country. A complete EU ban will end this trade. Nothing else will stop it.

You can help make a difference. Send your letters to Commissioner David Byrne (European Commission, Rue de la Loi 200, B-1049 Brussels, Belgium) asking that he act now to end the import, export and sale of these products to end this terrible consumer fraud. Until he does, each one of us runs the risk of supporting the killing of the very animals we cherish so much in our own lives.

Struan Stevenson MEP