The number of animals that are killed daily across the globe for various purposes must be big. This number accumulates daily such that at the end of every year it is much bigger than we expect. For instance in United States nearly 9 billion chickens are slaughtered for meat. Another 100 million animals loses their lives in tests and experiments. Additionally, 3 to 4 million dogs and cats are euthanized yearly which adds to the number of animals lost yearly. Felthous (163) has noted that leather industry is not safe either because approximately 1 billion animals are slaughtered for fur. This implies that people engages in animal cruelty, it may be intentional or unintentional but the truth is that our choices will contribute to animal cruelty or not.
The minimum federal law of the Animal Welfare Act gives authority to the fur industry to continue with the fur business. However, every state can come up with other laws and policies that may include additional guidelines and specifications for handling animals. Nevertheless, fur dealers have always gone overboard in the ways they handle these animals. For instance, most of the fur farms are usually in cold regions. In these farms the animals are reared in small cages which usually lead to physical and emotional stress. In some farms, most of these animals are given food by products which are not considered fit for human consumption. Moreover most of these animals are given water through nipple and this often freezes at winter time putting more stress to these animals.
The killing methods that the fur dealers use are very horrible. These methods are varied, but with the intent of ensuring that fur is not damaged. To start with, the fur dealers use traps to get the animals they want to kill in order to get fur for coats. After catching their prey, the fur dealers usually leave the animals in the traps for long before the trappers are removed. Sometimes they are left in traps for hours, for a day or sometimes longer than a day. This forces the animal to find ways of escaping. And many times these animals chew their paw or own legs to escape from these traps. These animals endanger their life because they often die of blood loss after escaping, and sometimes are killed by their predators because they can’t defend themselves effectively. Also fever and gangrene can occasionally cause death to these animals due to excessive blood loss. These traps usually trap other animals as well. In fact nearly 50% of the animals frequently trapped are not useful in fur industry because they don’t have fur. They include domestic animals like cats and dogs.
After trapping these animals, if they are the small type they are put in small size boxes and killed by the hot engine exhaust poison. Large animals are electrocuted by inserting rods in their opening particularly anus and mouths. Decompressing chambers, neck snapping and gassing are also used. The trapped animals are usually beaten to death. In fact, these methods hardly kill the animals effectively subjecting them to unnecessary pain (Animal Legal Defense Fund, para. 10).
In summary, the far industry must continue with its operations because people need coats. However, while doing this, the animal’s cruelty must be stopped. Therefore, the fur dealers must find better ways of trapping and killing their animals without imposing unnecessary pain to the animals. How can you take it, your best pet being held in the traps for a day or two and after chewing its leg to escape the trap, it bleeds to death or its killed by a predator?
Work Cited
Felthous, Alan R. eds. (2012). Aggression against Cats, Dogs, and People. In Cruelty to Animals and Interpersonal Violence: Readings in Research and Applications. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press. pp. 159–167.
Animal Legal Defense Fund. . 2010. . Web 28/11/12. .
