N.J. anti-fur demonstrators face up to N.Y. shoppers on Black Friday

vIndianz.com ( Dec. 01, 2009) — “50 dead animals – one fur coat!”

That weep was repeated over and over outside Lord & Taylor, then Macy’s, on the day after Thanksgiving, once entirely known as “Black Friday,” but currently a.k.a. “Fur Free Friday.”

caaf Even as most people were out good deal hunting, members of a New Jersey animal rights organization met to demonstrate against fur outside two New York City stores that trade fur.

New Jersey’s Caring Activists Against Fur (CAAF) were united by the NYC Animal Rights group and reps of Global Justice for Animals and the Environment, coming from a protest against Canada’s baby seal hunts. A few in animal costumes and most holding gruesome signs, scores of activists marched with police accompanying them down Fifth Avenue and then to Macy’s.

There, an advance guard had set up a video illustrating the horrendous ways animals are treated in the notice of fur garments and trim. Included was footage from undercover investigators in China and scenes of animals being trapped and electrocuted in the US.

From Tenafly, John O’Connor helped run the video equipment and Eve Bolkin wore a fake-raccoon coat full with small animal faces and pelts, obviously intended to remind those who see it – who could miss it? – Of what each fur coat really costs. A few pedestrians gave thumbs up, but far more looked stony faced and accelerated past.

The annual Fur Free Friday occasion is one of many at stores in New Jersey-New York where fur garments and/or clothes with fur trim are sold. Spearheaded by two women, CAAF demonstrations run from fall to spring. It’s a cold and often inhospitable season for standing outside and telling people what they might not know and most likely don’t desire to be acquainted with.

Animal activists Julie O’Connor, a teacher, and Debra Kowalski, a nurse, acknowledged their joint horror at the fur industry about six years ago. They joined forces as CAAF to raise consciousness and rally protesters against the barbarism to animals who can’t talk for themselves.

CAAF’s website shows the demonstration program for the rest of this season and gives contact specs. Things wind down in March – occasionally with one last demonstration against the baby seal hunts that occur in Canada then.

Even though humans haven’t required sporting fur for warmth since caveman days, people still associate fur with glamour. Instead, CAAF activists want them to associate fur with brutally nasty treatment of innocent animals.

For example, wild animals might be trapped in steel leg-hold traps, most usually used in the US, where they make distressed attempts to run away that include chewing off a limb. They might be beaten or stomped to death for the very reason that their pelts won’t be blood-spotted or include bullet holes.

Even animals raised on supposed fur farms including in US are normally “housed” in tiny, smutty wire cages, detached from everything that’s natural to them. After their miserable lives, their necks may be broken or their skulls beaten; they might be drowned, gassed, vaginally or anally electrocuted. Their fur is all that matters in the end.

China holds the doubtful difference of being the source of more than half the fur garments and trim sold in this country. Even dogs and cats are killed for their fur in Asia, and their fur is labeled “rabbit” or “coyote” prior to being exported.

Not just do CAAF demonstrators wish to alert people to the horrors of the fur trade, but they too desire people to give up fur and decline to do trade with the stores that sell it.

“Kindness and love is in fashion! Don’t buy fur!”

Your browser may not support display of this image.

Further Reading