ANIMAL FREE FASHION

This market is in decline but still causes suffering and death to tens of millions of specially bred animals (over 7 million in the EU alone) or animals caught in the wild, such as mink, foxes, raccoon dogs, chinchillas, coyotes, raccoons, but also rabbits, and many other animals.

100gr of feather or down from a duck, 150-200gr from a goose. Companies claim not to use live plucking, but the ‘Responsible’ Certifications are not reliable. Ostriches and other animals are exploited for decorative feathers. All are bred without respect for their natural needs.

Cattle, horses, sheep, goats and pigs: millions of animals, adults and puppies killed every year to produce hides. Leather is not a by-product: the tanning industry is a business in itself and is co-responsible with the food industry for environmental impact.

Pythons and other snakes, alligators and crocodiles, monitor lizards, ostriches, sharks, rays, and eels. Animals that are often trapped  (with instruments and methods that are cruel and have an impact on biodiversity) or bred in intensive conditions of total deprivation and then killed by decapitation, blows to the head or asphyxiation.

In Australia, 44 million kangaroos have been killed for commercial purposes in the last 20 years, in addition to hundreds of thousands of kangaroo pups that died after their mothers were killed. An unprecedented slaughter, for the profit of the kangaroo meat and leather industry. Italy is the main European importer of raw hides.

Each year in Australia, out of more than 150 million sheep raised (25% of world production), 10 to 15 million lambs die from hypothermia and starvation less than 48 hours after birth. If no longer productive, the sheep are shipped on cargo vessels to the Middle East and North Africa. This breeding is one of the main causes of desertification.

Every three months, restrained rabbits have their fur ‘sheared’ with sharp cutting instruments or pulled out by hand. This is a very painful practice: some die of stress-induced heart failure. The main producer is China, but also in Europe, in France in particular, this cruel technique is documented.

To obtain 100 kg of cocoons, from which 20/25 kg of silk is made, up to 50 thousand silkworms are killed, immersed in boiling water before emerging from the cocoon. A cruel method, which does not consider the existence of numerous cheaper and more resistant alternative materials.

Fifty per cent of the goats from which mohair wool is obtained are bred in South Africa. The shearing involves trauma, injury and terror. Cashmere goats are bred in Asia and the Middle East: the yarn is obtained by ‘combing’, tearing the hair from restrained animals. Alpaca, vicuna, guanaco, llama, camel and yak are also exploited for yarn.