So I ran across this little gem (WARNING: very graphic depiction of people skinning rabbits alive), and I was wondering two things. Well, actually lots more if you count all the random thoughts I tried to distract myself with so as not to throw up, but two that are pertinent to this topic.
Are these things really rabbits? They don’t look like the rabbits I know.
What’s with the incredibly inhumane way of killing them? It doesn’t seem to be to keep blood from getting on the fur. Granted, I couldn’t watch the entire thing, but it looked pretty bloody to me. Is it sheer laziness? That doesn’t seem to work either, since I can’t imagine it being easier to slam the animal on the ground repeatedly as opposed to just crushing it’s skull in with a hammer or something. Now that I think about it, a hammer might not even be more humane.
Yeah, yeah, I know, I said two, but I have to make sure; this is real, right? My animal loving inside prays it’s not, but knowing the sad depths of human nature, it’s all too easy to believe.
It’s real, but it looks like a raccoon to me. No wonder Wet Seal didn’t take them seriously if they can’t even thell the difference between a rabbit and a raccoon.
Personally I have no trouble with people wearing animal products (leather, fur) assuming the animals are killed humanely, the species is not endangered and the rest of them is used in some other fashion (e.g. something like 99% or more of a cow is put to some use).
But this is just freaking NASTY! I have seen some similar things in the past but I think this one is the worst (worse than the clubbing of baby harp seals IMO). I really wanted to throw-up and that is not exaggeration or hyperbole. I could not watch the whole thing (got through half of it). There is no other term for this except extended, brutal torture of animals.
BTW…if there were rabbits in there somewhere I didn’t see them but as I said I couldn’t get through the whole thing. The first animals shown sure seemed like a racoon or something very similar but definitely not a rabbit.
Makes me ill to think I share the planet with people who can so casually do this. The worst part is it is clear that killing the animals quickly could be easily accomplished. I just do not get it…
You know…this is why PETA has just totally lost me. Looking on that site linked in the OP further I noticed they posted the CEO’s home address, wife’s name and their home phone number in case anyone wants to “politely” tell the CEO what they think of this practice. It is this sort of thing that has gotten doctors who perform abortions shot.
Further, while that video is atrocious, where is the info linking what is happening in the video to Wet Seal? TBH the farm there wasn’t exactly a model of efficiency so I doubt they supply anything like a significant portion of the fur used in Wet Seal stores (could be wrong of course but seems quite a stretch). So how far down the chain are these creeps from Wet Seal? How many middle men does it go through before ending up in a Wet Seal store? It would be great if Wet Seal tried to use its influence to stop this but if this fur runs through multiple middle men it may end up at any number of stores in the end. In short…why is Wet Seal being targetted exclusively here? All I see on the page are claims that millions of rabbits die every year and Wet Seal sells products with rabbit fur. I did not see a rabbit in the video even (admittedly only watched part of it though) but what about the other animals in that video? Why aren’t they mentioned? Just not as cute as Thumper getting skinned alive?
In short I just can’t trust PETA anymore. Too strident and fringe. They are the Michael Moore of animal protection activists. There are some legitimate gripes they have but it gets lost in their hysterics which I personally think only serves to weaken their credibility and ability to convey their message. More’s the pity.
[sub]Well…that should send this to IMHO I think. [/sub]
[QUOTE= They are the Michael Moore of animal protection activists. .
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And that is bad?
There are, of course, no numbers (that I know of) available, but my gut instinct is that Michael has moved MILLIONS off their complacent acceptance of the insanities that surround off.
A question of curiosity…
Does anyone other than me notice that peta doesn’t seem to make a stand about all things, just some? It seems that I don’t recall any fuss about a commercial shown often with a fish and very little water where a young boy said “I don’t want to feel like a fish with no water” or something to that effect…and I feel that fish are animals that deserve to be defended along with others…but is it possible that since this animal is not cute and cuddly, it was not defended? or did I miss the defense of this small fish?
In general, people tend to empathize with warm-blooded animals more than cold-blooded critters, or insects, or whatever. Hippies and Jains aside, I guess.
That being said, it’s unlikely that a fish was terribly stressed to make an ad like that. (I should say that I haven’t seen it.) People are pretty careful about that sort of thing. Usually, they won’t even squish a bug – if the script calls for it, they’ll be tricky and give the impression of a bug being squished, without actually causing the critter any undue distress. If it looked like the fish was being harmed, it was probably an effect of some sort.
If the fish was just without water for a brief time – well, that’s really not that much of an offense. Even extreme pescephiles will scoop those puppies out of the tank with a net for transfer, tank cleanings, or whatever. The fish seem a bit perturbed – sure – but it’s not like you’re skinning them alive or anything.
Yeah…it’s bad. Moore may have moved millions off their complacent asses but frankly a good part of those millions were people opposed to Moore who he scred enough to go out and vote and make sure those damn commie liberal types don’t get in office.
There is plenty of crud PETA could sling at evil corporations without retreating to hyperbole and hysterics. To my mind it just makes them less trustworthy and I do not buy into their schtick and I positively adore animals (even the not cute ones). I wanted to sign their petition to get Wet Seal to try and do something about what was in the video. Except I am unsure the video is actually of anything Wet Seal has a hand in and their petition was a screed on the evils of fur in general rather than the horrid practices depicted.
So basically PETA managed to get me to despise some rural farmers and not want to so much as write Wet Seal. (I should note if I see something believable that Wet Seal has something to do with this I will change my mind in a blink.)
In fact it was so inefficent that I start to wonder if it wasn’t a put up job. It would have been simpler, faster, less fur damaging and arguably more humane to break the critters necks. Banging them around like that has got to be hard on the fur and that is not in the best interest of the harvester and skinning them alive, ethical considerations aside, greatly ups the risk of injury to the skinner.
I managed to sit through the whole thing and never did see a rabbit. Raccoon,badger,white fox(actually looked and sounded more like domestic dogs) perhaps but nothing that looked like rabbits.
Another part of the PETA site described the first creature that was skinned alive (the one that was still alive enough to lift its bloodied skull-like head and look at the camera and move its nothing-left-but-bone-and-paws front limbs around) as a “raccoon dog.”
To those of you who could watch it: you have far stronger stomachs than I. There are lots of things in this video that don’t really make much sense - complete lack of rabbits, bizarre and disgustingly unnecessary method of killing and skinning, and now raccoon dogs? So it’s not even rabbit fur that is being sold b whomever, but it’s actually dog fur being passed off as rabbit fur? Wow. Maybe I should have put this in GD instead of GQ.
And, as jayjay’s link shows, endangered dogs, at that.
I suspect the film has nothing to do with Wet Seal, and is actually a video of poachers in some remote part of Asia, where the raccoon dogs come from.
[sub]I first typed “poocher” instead of “poacher,” Freudian slip?[/sub]
In fact, I just remembered recieving a mailing from PETA, probably 15 or 20 years ago. In it they had enclosed page after page of graphic photos of men butchering dogs in the same manner. (not the same kind of dogs, however.) The photos, the flyer said were from somewhere in Asia and we as Americans should “police the barbaric behavior of these people.”
At the time, PETA was a new name on the street, and my thought was that they were just a bunch of nuts with more money, and time than brains.
I’ve seen this on a trapping board. I believe that it’s from China. Some low life scum (your typical animal rightist) paid someone to do this and then filmed it for posterity. These extreme lowlifes (animal rightists) have done the same thing with a sealer in Canada where they paid a drunk to skin a seal alive so that they could film it. Trust me, skinning live animals from even a practical standpoint isn’t done much less an ethical one.
You don’t happen to have a link to that board, do you? I’d be interested in seeing it for myself, since it’d at least restore a little of my faith in humanity. Well, minus the part that includes drunk sadistic sickos and crazy animal rightists (not to imply that they all are, of course).
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