Monday, 29th December 2008
My battle to end the barbaric trade in cat and dog fur by Struan Stevenson
From New Year’s Day, the vile trade in cat and dog fur across Europe will finally be banned.
Cat and dog fur from Asia has been sold extensively in some of our best- known stores as fur-trim for parka hoods, ski boot linings, glove linings and even full length fashion coats. Consumers who thought they were buying “Asian wolf” or “Corsac fox” were in fact purchasing fur from German shepherd or even golden retriever puppies.
Cat fur is sold in homeopathic shops allegedly to help arthritis sufferers. Cute little figurines of cats and dogs sleeping in little wicker baskets are commonly sold throughout the EU. Cat & dog lovers buy them for their children, not realizing that real cats and dogs have been cruelly slaughtered and sometimes skinned alive to make these toys.
Now, after a campaign lasting nine years, there can be no legal import, export or trade in this fur in any of the 27 EU member states.
Despite overwhelming evidence, it took all of this time to persuade the European Commission to draw up a law that would not breach world trade regulations and then to get the law passed by both the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. It was a tough fight.
Along the way, millions of Europeans signed petitions, sent emails or wrote letters while various celebrities like Sir Paul McCartney and his former wife Heather Mills backed a boycott on Chinese fur products. Even the director of TV’s Sex in the City, Dennis Erdman, persuaded Hollywood personalities to join in.
Since the campaign started, an estimated 16 million cats and dogs have died in the name of fashion. They are raised under deplorable conditions and killed either by stabbing or hanging mainly in China but also in Thailand and the Philippines.
Investigators from one of the world’s largest animal protection organisations, Humane Society International, went undercover in Asia to track down the slaughter. Video footage of what they uncovered is horrific.
In one instance, a German shepherd is seen tethered by a metal noose in Harbin, Northern China, wagging its tail until the butcher raises its hind leg and slashes an artery, allowing it to bleed to death, howling in agony. Before it was properly dead, the butcher began to skin the dog alive. More footage showed cats in a cage looking on as one by one their companions are strangled with wire nooses. Investigators documented football-pitch sized warehouses piled to the ceiling with an estimated 100,000 cat pelts produced at animal factories in China.
The US Congress quickly banned the import and export of dog furs and skins into America. But the loss of such a major market prompted the Asian merchants to switch their attention to Europe and Russia. Soon the items were virtually everywhere, on The Ramblas in Barcelona, the markets of Berlin and in shopping malls in Austria, Denmark France and of course, Britain.
French Police acting on a tip-off raided a warehouse in Nanterre and found cat skins buried under piles of assorted animal skins. The French veterinary service discovered another 1500 cat pelts from China held by a merchant planning to export them for the manufacture of toys.
In Germany, investigators bought a full length coat made out of the fur of 42 Alsatian puppies, while chew sticks for dogs were found to contain skin from a variety of animals, including dogs and cats.
The campaign exposed not only the barbaric cruelty of the trade but also the potential danger of exposure to high levels of toxic chromium used in the hide-tanning process, on cat and dog fur toys imported from China.
Italy, Denmark, France, Belgium, Greece and Australia quickly followed the US in imposing a unilateral ban. But the only way to stop the movement of cat and dog fur across EU internal borders was to introduce a complete ban.
Surprisingly, there was strong resistance from the then EU Commissioner for Consumer Affairs, David Byrne, who advised that there was no legal basis for a European law. I challenged this on the basis that the trade in cat and dog fur represented massive fraud. Consumers are unaware of what they may be purchasing and are therefore inadvertently fueling a trade that kills millions of animals and lines the pockets of barbaric merchants.
In December 2003, my formal declaration calling for an EU-wide ban received the support of 346 MEPs. This was only the sixth time in the history of the European Parliament that an actual majority of members had signed such a resolution. This was transmitted to the European Commission by the President but still the Commission refused to take action.
It was not until two years later that the new European Commissioner for Consumer Affairs, Markus Kyprianou, announced that he had established a legal basis and intended to draw up a law banning the import, export and trade in cat and dog fur in the EU.
I went to Beijing to speak to the Chinese Government. They were clearly deeply unhappy at this turn of events. I had previously met Mr Cheng Runsheng, the secretary general of the China Wildlife Association, when I handed over DVDs of cats and dogs being skinned alive. He had pledged every effort to end what he admitted were “barbaric practices”.
But on my subsequent visit in July 2007, my hopes of support from Chinese officials were quickly dashed with the intervention of the Minister responsible for animal welfare Mr Wang Wei, who told me: “Skinning animals alive is not common practice in China.”
The Minister claimed the filmed evidence was a “set up” and that a farmer had admitted being paid by a ‘Taiwanese criminal’ so that the film could be used to discredit China. He denied that such atrocities were commonplace. Clearly, I had struck a raw nerve with the Chinese Government.
Despite the successful implementation of our EU ban, there remains much work to be done to convince the Chinese to put a stop to this horrific trade once and for all. My hope is that together with the refusal of America and Australia to market such wares, we can bring an absolute end to the killing of these animals for their skin.
China must now follow suit it genuinely wants to belong to the global family of civilised nations.
