More Thoughts About Fur and Leather
Tomislav Tolusic, Croatian minister of agriculture
"Croatian farmers had a phase-out period of 10 years to shift their production―the deadline has expired and the public laid out its reasons against extending the deadline. Animal Friends greatly contributed to this process. I take this opportunity to thank everyone who has participated and contributed in drafting the Animal Protection Act, which will soon go into the adoption procedure and will bring a number of new provisions to offer a greater protection to animals."
Professor Christine Nicol, Faculty of Medical and Veterinary Sciences, School of Veterinary Science, University of Bristol
"All fur animals are of course mammals, and one characteristic of mammals is the close relationship formed between mother and offspring, closer than occurs in any other group of animals. Breeding such animals for fur causes great emotional distress as young animals are separated from their mothers, who have to undergo repeated pregnancies only to lose each litter again. It is not economically viable to provide environments and management practices that meet the legal requirement to satisfy the animals' behaivoural needs."
Inez Staarink, Policy Advisor on Agriculture, Nature, Animals and Food – Dutch Parliament
"The Netherlands will no longer export fur, but instead we will export bans on fur farming."
Pamela Anderson
"I don't mind a little blood on the ice when it's a hockey rink, but I hate seeing blood on the ice when it's from baby seals."
Dr. Jerry Vlasak (April 9, 2006)
"Three-fourths of all newborn seals may have already perished in the Gulf of St. Lawrence due to record warm weather's melting the ice from beneath them. Meanwhile, the violent barbarians are bludgeoning the survivors to death at this very moment. The pathetic murderers of Newfoundland must be stopped."
Fani Stipkovic, Croatian model
"I cannot grasp how one can support violence to animals. There is no sense in so much torturing animals for fashion, especially because fur is not necessary and is completely replaceable. You can be modern without killing. Turn your back on fur and express your humanity!"
Ivana Radovnikovic, Croatian singer
"I think that the sight of a fur coat is terrifying, as well as those who do not see 200 killed chinchillas in it. As long as people will wear fur, animals will be tortured and killed for them."
Desmond Adams, a veteran sealer
"We all go out for the love of it rather than the money, which isn't there anymore. No one's going to stop hunting if they don't have to. Newfoundlanders are good at following orders. They've told us we can't fish and we can't do this or that. And we don't."
Captain Paul Watson
"These men are addicts and thugs. Uneducated, filthy, brutal lowlifes who inflict the most merciless cruelties upon seal pups and then whine and snivel when they get stuck in the ice and their tobacco addiction kicks in. And here we have the Canadian Coast Guard using Canadian tax dollars to ferry cigarettes out to these sadistic morons to keep them happy. It's a bloody disgrace and it makes me ashamed to be a Canadian and even more ashamed that I'm a former Canadian Coast Guardsman."
Riyo Mori of Japan, Miss Universe 2007
"I will say this out loud: I will not wear fur. I love animals and I agree with those who oppose wearing fur products."
Neil Parish, Chair of a European Parliament animal welfare panel
"The slaughter of seals in Canada, including seals that are just a few weeks old, is barbaric and the EU should not condone it. The methods used, cudgeling with a 'hakapik' or shooting, have too often not killed the seal outright, and I am not satisfied with Canadian assertions that seals are not still being skinned alive."
Captain Paul Watson
"There are some who have criticized us saying that we should hate sealing and love the sealers – that is not their fault, that they are simple working men trying to earn a living, men with families and with feelings.
"The people who say this have not been on the ice with us. They have not seen the traumatic brutality that we have witnessed – they have not heard the pathetic screams of seal pups as they struggle valiantly to escape the clubs, the knives and the bullets of the sealers. They have not seen seal pups run down and crushed into bloody pulp by government ice-breakers, they have not seen seal pups thrashing about in their own blood and vomited babies milk. They have not seen grieving mothers trying to nurse the frozen bodies of their young.
"My answer to those who say we are insensitive is this? Where is your sensitivity to the feelings and the welfare of the seals that are being viciously hacked, clubbed, slashed and shot?
"The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society represents the seals – they are our clients. We speak for them. If people do not like what the seals have to say then we have no apologies for that. My description of what a young seal sees as a sealer approaches it is in fact what a seal pups sees before having his face bashed in by a club. That is a description of helplessness.
"The seals will not suffer in silence, they will not be wiped out in a vacuum of apathy. They will be heard even if we have to outrage an entire nation."
Sir Paul McCartney
"Stopping the import of seal fur into the European Union could really put an end to this brutality once and for all – please ask the EU to ban this terrible trade today."
Tamara Ecclestone
"I enjoy going to fashion shows and I enjoy seeing what's new and fantastic. But I just don't understand how fur is necessarily fashionable. I just think it's terrible to harm living animals all in the name of vanity. I think it's completely unnecessary, and I think that once you've seen the ways in which lots of these animals are killed – and how grotesque and unnecessary it is – I think that people would automatically choose not to wear fur."
Luka Nizetic, a popular Croatian singer
"It is an honor to be able to help Animal Friends in this way in their struggle to end the killing of animals for fur. People need to be informed every day and reminded of the horrors which are done to animals for the needs of fashion industry. There is no justification for fur, instead of being silent about it we should loudly say NO."
Sealer's statement, taken by Fergus Foley, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
"Prior to March most females were killed with the pup inside them. I seen seven pups threw over the side after the female was pelted. I took two out myself. Me and another sealer even agreed that this was shocking and there should be another way to hunt seals. We were in the whelping on March 10/98 because I observed that eight of tens pans of ice had young pups with the after birth and other debris from the birth on the ice. There was once I can remember the young seal watching his parents being hoist aboard. He watched the boat as we steamed away. The pups were not killed but left by themselves on the ice."
Sealer's statement, taken by Cyril Furlong, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
"I did see some mother seals killed and the pup fall out on deck still alive. (Deleted) told me to throw it overboard and I did. It crawled up on a pan of ice. The mother was full of milk, the milk ran out on deck when the pup fell out."
Sealer's statement, taken by Cyril Furlong, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
"I was present when female seals were pelted and did see pups fall out of the female on deck. I seen this happen twice and know that it happened eight to ten times during the first trip. I knew this happened because of conversations with the crew. The two pups that I saw on deck were alive. The pups were threw over board and on one occasion I did see one of these pups swimming in the water. I don't know what happened to the pups."
Sealer's statement, taken by Fergus Foley, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
"I seen a female being pelted and the pup came out of her when they cut her open, the pup was dead. This seal was killed for a while. This was on the day we got one hundred and seventy. Someone passed the comment, 'If Green peace were only here to see this.'"
JD Samson (Le Tigre)
"I have always been anti-fur, since I knew that fur was available to wear, and I never put it on me. "
Kathleen Hanna (Le Tigre)
"There is so many beautiful fabrics out there that are also very warm and really luxurious, that is ridicilous to have to murder innocent animals in order to make a coat."
Eva Mendes
"At a time when there is so much violence in the world, this is one type of violence that all of us can help stop – by being informed consumers."
Luka Novosel, defender of Ice Hockey Club Medvescak Zagreb
"Fur should be where it belongs. On animals!"
Alesana
"It makes us sick to our stomachs to think of people who are comfortable with bludgeoning defenseless baby seals solely in an effort to make a dollar, and what's worse is the people who turn around and purchase the results."
Twiggy
"I am very sad that some designers are still using real fur when the fake alternatives are so effective and so easily obtainable. Is it really worth this cruelty just for fashion's sake? I don't think so."
Natalie Imbruglia
"Saving animals is as simple as choosing synthetic alternatives instead of real fur."
Joan Jett
"Put fur lovers' legs in a steel trap for a few days, or whack 'em on the head with a club, and maybe they'll get it."
Adi, vocalist of the Croatian indie band Superbrands
"Some things are simply wrong, and the slaughter of seals in Canada is one of those senseless and inhumane things. Scenes of those insensitive hunters who beat and kill baby seals, all so that European and Croatian 'ladies' and 'celebrities' could satisfy their vanity in someone else's fur to parade through the streets, are strongly engraved in our hearts. The poet Antun Branko Simic said that poets are astonishment in the world, but often they are outrage and condemnation. Thus we could not remain silent because the hand of Canadian hunters really striking strong, cruel and bloody."
Martha Stewart
"I used to wear real fur, but, like many others, I had a change of heart when I learned what actually happens to the animals."
Jean-Claude Van Damme
"I fail to see what is attractive about walking around in an animal skin, I suspect the animals would agree with me."
Emilija Kokic, Croatian singer
"I think it is horrific to wear fur, I do not wear it and I am completely against it. If there are people aesthetically attached to those items, I would recommend them to wear fake fur and leave animals alone."
Vanna, Croatian singer
"I adore animals and I am really against real fur, I never wear it. I would like to start a trend in which everyone who wears only artificial materials, like me, would point out that fact and advocate for not wearing real fur."
Tereza Kesovija, singer
"I have not worn fur in for a long time, I wear eco-fur coats because I think that the time has come when we don't have to kill animals to make people warm."
Mirna Zidaric, Croatian sports reporter
"There is no single clothing item I can definitely say I will never wear, but it is the most likely that I will never drape myself with a real fur coat. Dreadful are the scenes of tortured animals after which glamourous clothes are made, in which then teased up ladies can parade in their lacquered stilletoes."
Mirna Zidaric, Croatian sports reporter
"I don't know what would have to happen for me to put on real fur. I shudder every time I think about the process of making fur clothes. That is why I don't understand people who ignore it and parade around the city center in fur coats. I think that in the 21st century we don't have to skin animals like the neanderthal from Krapina to protect ourselves from the cold."
Vanessa Radman, Croatian actress
"I had a wolf fur coat, but although fur is very enticing, I wouldn't wear it any more because I would always ask myself how many animals had to pay with their life to make me warm. However, I would like to have one glamourous coat made of eco-fur."
Minea, Croatian singer, said at the protest "Loudly for Croatia without Fur"
"I definitely support this action, I will support the next ones because I think that fur is not an item of clothing, and animals are not toys. I have never worn fur, and I never will, and those who cannot do without it have an alternative – fake fur. I have a dog and three cats and I have no desire to see them on a plate, mine or someone elses. I am glad that someone is seriously working on this project, but media should give more attention to this and similar problems of this society."
Stella McCartney
"As a designer, I like to work with fabrics that don't bleed; that's why I avoid all animal skins."
Boris Novkovic, Croatian singer
"Even if fur had a purpose during the old, primal and primitive civilizations when there was no replacement for it, today when there are adequate and better quality replacements of the original, there is no point to it except violence and to destroy the natural balance out of spite."
Djurdjica Vorkapic, Hippy Garden, Croatian fashion designer
"The world of fashion is a world of creation. Our modern world implies various forms of progress and likes to boast with innovation, but it can hardly be called progressive and even less innovative to use someone's fur in today's civilized society in order to produce a design object. To create means to make things out of one's deepest inner being, to extract something beautiful from oneself and to give it a form. Today's industry offers a huge number of technical possibilities to produce fabric, including beautiful faux fur, and it is indeed backward and primitive to take someone's life for one's personal pleasure."
Tim Howard, soccer goalkeeper for the US national team
"Protecting animals is very important to me, and I think speaking out against fur is an amazing cause. When I see someone wearing fur, I just want to sit them down in front of one of PETA's videos and show them just how badly animals suffer for this supposed fabric that no one needs."
Leona Lewis
"I think animals are treated very poorly. When I see people wearing fur it makes me so sick. Especially when I see young singers doing it, that sickens me. When I rocked up to my first photo shoot they had feathers and fur there and everything... I had to make it so clear that I just do not go there."
Fani Stipkovic, Croatian journalist
"I am deeply disappointed by Minister Jakovina's move which is a proof that he is not motivated by ethics and progress of our society, but entirely by individual financial profit. That will put Croatia in the company of backward countries which do not strive for progress, but fail at social values without humane foundations. Killings of innocent chinchillas, who are tortured in the worst way possible only to produce a fur coat, will not save someone's life or change our society for better because it's sole purpose is a promotion of luxury in the worst way possible, with the cost of killing a life. I appeal once again to protect innocent animals, and for Croatia to become aware and create new measures which will show that we are a civilized society with a goal to improve and promote true values."
Bojan Jambrosic, Croatian singer
"I do not support killings of chinchillas and I am strictly against breeding of animals for fur. I am glad that Animal Friends have defended and stood up for these tiny creatures with this humorous, yet very clear, campaign. Therefore I give my vote to CHINCHI and FOR CROATIA WITHOUT FUR."
Robert Boskovic, Croatian actor and director
"Do you know that one must kill 200 chinchillas for a fur coat? I was appalled by this in 2006 and I believed that all chinchilla farms in our country would be closed! Today, 9 years later, I've expected that we would be smarter. This is why I support Chinchi, and I strongly believe in reason and happy outcome of this campaign."
Sairey Stemp, Senior Fashion Editor, Cosmopolitan, Hearst Magazines UK
"Fur is portrayed as being 'luxurious'. To me it's an obscenity."
Goran Visnjic
"Play a role that will make you proud, be a best friend to animals. Let's save chinchillas and improve the Act for all animals!"
![Source: www.animalphotolibrary.com - An activist saves a seal pup [ 41.77 Kb ]](/data/image_2_2422.jpg "Source: www.animalphotolibrary.com - An activist saves a seal pup [ 41.77 Kb ]")
