Berkeley Earns PETA’s Compassionate City Award for Voting in Favor of Ban on Fur Sales
PETA is sending the Berkeley City Council in California a Compassionate City Award—along with a box of rabbit-shaped vegan chocolates—in honor of its initial passing of an ordinance that prohibits the sale of fur from any species of animal.
“Berkeley’s new initiative to ban fur will prevent many animals from being beaten, electrocuted, and even skinned alive for coats, collars, cuffs, and stupid little pompoms,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA hopes the city’s compassionate example will inspire others across the country to take similar steps to protect animals.”
The city council voted in favor of the ordinance last week, after an enthusiastic campaign by the Berkeley Coalition for Animals.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—notes that animals on fur farms spend their entire lives confined to cramped, filthy wire cages before they’re electrocuted, gassed, or poisoned. Others are caught in steel-jaw traps—which slam shut on an animal’s leg, often cutting to the bone and causing excruciating pain—and will sometimes attempt to chew off their own limbs to escape and return to their starving pups. If they don’t die from blood loss, infection, or gangrene, trappers shoot, strangle, beat, or stomp them to death.
Numerous top designers and retailers—including Stella McCartney, Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani, and many others—are 100 percent fur-free.
What You Can Do
Spread the word that millions of animals are beaten, boiled, hanged, and electrocuted for their fur every year; that each fur coat, piece of fur lining or fur trim, and fur cat toy represents intense animal suffering; and that many furriers intentionally mislabel the fur of cats and dogs as coming from other species or as faux fur. Every decent human being who learns this information will want to go fur-free.
By signing the pledge and encouraging your friends and family to do so as well, you’ll be sending a powerful message not only to the fur industry but also to designers, retailers, and others who directly profit from the suffering caused by this cruel industry.
