Rethink, activists: The U.S. fur trade cares for its beasts

FROM THE HART | Euthanasia easier than being eaten

     If People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) really cared about animals instead of vivisecting the celebrity Olsen twins as they did this week for wearing fur, they'd actually be promoting the American fur trade. Seriously.

     Full disclosure: I admit to having and wearing a fur coat. Actually what I have is more of a jacket, and it's some 15-plus years old. But on bitter cold Chicago days, I couldn't be happier for the incredible warmth it provides.

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     I sometimes think animal rights activists have a vision of wild animals being happily surrounded at the end of life by their little Bambis as they slip off peacefully to animal heaven. The reality is animals in the wild will for the most part suffer torturous deaths by a) being brutally killed and eaten, or being eaten alive, by other animals or b) dying horrifically and slowly -- alone -- of sickness, injury, or old age.

     I recently watched a YouTube.com video on life in the wild. One little water buffalo, still very much alive, was being viciously chewed on at both ends -- lions on one, crocodiles on the other. It really is a jungle out there.

     Now consider that the American fur industry is -- as it should be -- the most scrutinized in the world. The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) approves of the humane raising of animals for their fur. (Member vets inspect fur farms through industry certification organizations.) In its 2007 guidelines on euthanasia, which actually means "good death," the veterinary organization noted that most farm-raised fur animals, the source of most U.S. pelts, "are euthanized individually and at the location where they are raised." Typically, they are painlessly gassed.

     How an animal is treated -- in terms of food, veterinary care, even its cage conditions -- will be reflected in its fur quality -- and its price. It's no accident that the U.S. fur industry produces the world's most expensive furs.

     It also should come as no surprise that because of the fur trade, fur-bearing animals in the United States are more numerous than at any time in our history.

     If PETA had its way and the fur trade was abolished in the United States, not only would some animals such as mink likely become an endangered species here, people would look even more to foreign countries and their cheaper furs, including the Chinese and their growing and unregulated fur industry, to fill the void. Let's face it -- the mink and fox are better off in the United States.

     Look for the nascent fallout between the environmentalists and the animal rights activists to grow. The average synthetic winter jacket, which comes from petroleum products, will last only a couple of years and takes three gallons of oil to produce. It also never fully biodegrades. In contrast, the same fully natural and biodegradable fur can be worn for generations.

     Look, the issue isn't, or shouldn't be, whether to allow animals (outside of "companimals") to be used by humans no matter how well they are treated, which is PETA's position.

     The question for most people, and rightly so, is how to use animals in an ethical and humane way. This goes back to when the writers of Proverbs noted that "A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal," but wicked men are cruel to theirs.

     Yes of course there are people, even in the animal husbandry fields, who treat animals cruelly. That is a terrible thing. But the way to halt abuse and improve conditions for animals isn't to argue the nonsensical and utterly impractical position of PETA, "no use of animals." It's to continue to press for their right use by the only beings who can, by definition, use them "humanely." Humans.