Fur goodness sake.....

I knew that most of the leather used to make most of our shoes and bags comes from animals killed for their skin in inhumane conditions, but I didn't want to make this thread about animal welfare and cruelty. It did used to be the case when most of the leather came from South America, but these days it comes from Asia, including countries like India and China.

Bear meat is eaten mainly by the local people who hunt and kill the animals for food and the skin. A large number of bears are hunted for sport, mainly by serious hunters who pay to go on guided trips. The animals are processed in the hunting camps and usually the hunters keep the parts they want and the rest is taken by the guides, so there's little waste. In places like Alaska, outside the cities the local people eat bear meat (and moose meat) in the same way we eat beef and that includes burgers. Irresponsible hunters are frowned upon.

In some countries a licence is needed to hunt bear and often the number of licences is restricted each year to the number that will keep the bear population under control. These licences are usually allocated through a lottery draw and people who get a licence can only kill a single adult bear in a season, and it's illegal to kill females with cubs.

Obviously we read about bears being slaughtered for body parts for use in Chinese medicine. I avoid the PETA website because I find the images too upsetting.

Good point about cold climates Conni7 Indigineous people who live within the Arctic Circle wear animal furs to prevent themselves dying of hypothermia! Fake fur just wouldn't do the job. I went to visit a Sami Family in Norway some years ago. It was -20C. They were all wearing coats, hats and footwear made from reindeer hide and were much warmer than we were in our thermals and artificial lined coats. Their tent was covered in reindeer hide, we sat inside by the fire on reindeer hides and we ate reindeer stew (delicious). These people lived with and for their reindeer. Followed them for hundreds of miles a year as they migrated in search of food and treated them with great respect as their only capital.

I wonder how that rude young women would have responded to this. I don't agree with wearing real fur as a fashion statement, but there is a case for it in certain parts of the world.

Not wholly relevant, but possibly interesting. Disapproval and rejection of wearing fur products has been powerful in the UK for a fairly long time – possibly since I was a teenager back in the 1960s, but certainly since the 1970s. Not necessarily so in the rest of Europe. A few years ago I was in Italy on a business trip and was taken out for dinner by the supplier's representative (ironically, another woman, given that it was 14 February) on St Valentine's Day – a big event in Italy with spectacular menus (seriously yum dinner). The middle-to-top restaurant in Vicenza was packed and I think only my host and I were the only women not wearing fur (or diamonds). I am also sure that I have seen quite a lot of luxurious furs adorning beautiful women in the USA too.

When I was clearing my late mother's house, I was seriously worried about what to do with her precious and treasured fur coats, wraps and stoles. I suspect that most charity shops won't take them because of aggressive animal rights protestors and, equally, I am not comfortable with animal furs, except on animals. These were all, obviously, some years old but nevertheless, I had no desire to keep them. Eventually, I trashed them but I knew that my mama would have been horrified at the waste of such warm and elegant wear.

absent when my Granny died we had the same problem with the full length fur coat she bought when my GPs won the football pools in the 1970s. Nobody in the family wanted it and as you say, charity shops are not interested either. By chance I mentioned the problem to a friend who fosters cats and she told me that animal sanctuaries take fur, where it's used to comfort animals recovering from injury or orphaned baby animals. So my Granny's pride and joy went to a local small animal sanctuary

Boheminan - wear your fake furry bonnet and enjoy it! No beautiful animal has suffered for your hat. Be proud and confident!

WilmaKnickersfit and Judthepud2 - interesting points. I have also seen a documentary about the reindeer herders and feel that it is an acceptable use of animals even though I am a strict vegetarian - almost vegan. The reindeers are treated with respect and love. The people and the reindeers share their lives and it is not exploitation, just survival.
Donating fur to animals sanctuaries is a good idea so at least the poor animals didn't die in vain and the rescue animals find some comfort. (as long as the fur coats don't stink of moth balls!)

I saw a documentary about small leather items being made from dogs - strays or kidnapped, rounded up off the streets in China, and kept and killed in terrible conditiond. When I next put on my leather gloves I ckecked the label - made in china - and felt sick. I bought woollen mittens.

Totally out of order to comment on your fake fur hat. None of her business.

I will stick my neck out here and say that I wear the mink coats I inherited from my mother. I don't think I would buy one nowadays. It's been dead for decades and minks are vermin and very nasty, rather meet a rat. I only wear it because it is very cold here in winter and that is what animal skins are for, not for show.

there has to be a balance between nature and practicality. I totally endorse the need for keeping animals for whatever purpose in humane conditions.

I am anti vegetarian because I consider that we were given an alimentary system and set of teeth that dictates that we are omnivores. Nature is cruel and hunter gatherer is the human condition, if taken to the limit then vegetarianism would unbalance Nature. If hunting is to be it should be for practical reasons, used for food or safety. We live in an area of France where the hunt is king. I hate guns, but it is so controlled here whereby there is a quota for deer and for boar and sometimes hare according to that years population, and a quota for each hunter. Therefore it is a genuine cull which can be very necessary, and it is done for food. Boars are dangerous creatures and I notice that they are getting closer to our property now and it doesn't fill me with joy.

I am pro fox hunting as the huntsman know what they are doing and not subjecting this beautiful creature to being shot at or trapped and left to die in agony. Lead hound kills instantaineously and the chase is part of the animal condition. Nature is cruel. I get very upset when I see emaciated, disease ridden urban foxes running around. A cull is so necessary in many British towns nowadays, due to stupid townsfolk feeding them and then wonder why their bins are raided and children attacked in bed. A fox is a cruel and beautiful creature. They kill for pleasure. My OH wouldn't let me see the carnage when our free range poultry run was massacred - and he had to go and finish the job on many of them.

My part of England is overrun with deer which is now becoming very, very dangerous with some really awful car crashes all because they are not hunted and culled.

Not keen on Hooray Henrys raising pheasants and then popping off their guns at them just to impress city bankers or like. Shoot the pheasants by all means if it is for food, but keep the business/social life out of it.

Gone of thread. Wear you furs - fake or otherwise, your choice and enjoy.

Annifrance, everyone is entitled to their opinion. No animal is purposely cruel, they kill to survive. Only humans have the mindset to be deliberately cruel either for greed or so called 'sport'.