Fraud and brutal cruelty beyond words. This sums up the heartless global fur industry which is exposed in the award- winning documentary, “Skin Trade” directed by Shannon Keith, a vegan animal rights attorney from the US and founder of the non-profit animal welfare organization Animal Rescue, Media & Education.

Ms. Keith represents animal rights activists and organizations. Her clientele include: SHARK (Showing Animals Respect and Kindness), the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and others. She is also the founder of Uncaged Films, a film production company that released the award-winning documentary “Behind the Mask”, a history of the animal liberation movement in 2006, and “Skin Trade” in 2010.

Fur is one of those things that there is just no argument for. Fur for vanity, that’s ridiculous. It should be gone and over with it by now.

I made “Skin Trade” so that people can see what goes on, how animals are killed for fur and how they can make a change and stop the brutal fur and fashion industries. “Skin Trade” features an array of prominent fashion designers, celebrities, government dignitaries, and others who speak out against the blood-soaked product that is fur.

They include, among others, US Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Academy Award- nominated vegan actor James Cromwell, and four-time US National Basketball Association champion and vegan John Salley. On today’s edition of Stop Animal Cruelty, we present the conclusion of our three part series that has been focusing on this film with further excerpts from “Skin Trade.”

The consumer fraud perpetrated by the fur industry has reached a whole new level by saying that fur is “green.”

There is nothing green in my book about fur. It is anything but. It certainly isn’t environmentally sound for the animals involved and it’s not environmentally sound for anybody. No fur in my life.

Animals are part of the environment and the ecosystem. So if you’re killing animals, you’re killing something that has to do with the environment. So how is that eco-friendly? That’s like (saying) “Let’s go chop down the whole forest and say that is eco-friendly.” Because what is bio-degradable? I mean, it’s ridiculous.

There’s lots of people who purport to be green, and the fur industry is one of them. And that for me is green washing. I don’t find anything green about the fur trade.

The whole purpose of the tanning process is to preserve them from decay, and unfortunately for the environment, we are really good at it. And those products will be with us for an extremely long period of time. There will still be fur products around long after human beings have left the planet.

The tanneries that are used to tan the hides for fur are extremely environmentally destructive. They’re polluting our water, polluting the ground.

Raising animals in any way, in any factory farmed way is the worst thing, worst thing ever for the environment.

Trying to convince us that it’s green is like telling us that toxic sludge is good for you.

First of all, the process that they need to use to preserve the fur, there is nothing green about it.

There is no way of getting around the fact that the process of tanning requires huge amounts of water and chemicals, metals, dyes, solvents, and acids. There is just no easy way to de-flesh these things, to de-fur, to remove the fur from the skins.

And these fur farms that are keeping animals contained in these small enclosures, what happens to the urine and feces of all these animals? There is nothing green about it.

Tanneries, throughout the 19th century and the 20th century, have just a very long and unfortunate history of polluting a lot of different water supplies.

It’s obviously better to have a fake fur than a real one any day, because the animals don’t suffer. It’s also better environmentally because, although the furriers are correct to say that a real fur is natural, it isn’t unless it’s on the animal.

Before they turn a skin into a fur garment, it has to go through the tanning process, which involves a host of deadly chemicals.

Once you take that fur off and tan the hide, add all these mordants to stop the animal’s fur from decomposing, it won’t go back into the ground. You can throw it out of the window; it will be there 10 years later.

These chemicals can persist for a very, very long time when dumped on the ground and can remain a source of pollution for a very long time.

There is no way it can benefit the environment. There is no possible way raising an animal for a piece of fur that is not biodegradable could be good for the environment!

The complete, complete— not even a little bit of truth— but complete falsehoods that were being offered up to consumers, I was really stunned at that. And I can’t believe that is allowed. It seems like you would, I don’t know, I tend to think you’d get in trouble for lying, so then lying to manipulate a sale…

I guess you have to lie super-duper to get somebody to cough up $35,000 bucks for a pile of dead animals.

I think some people are so incredibly selfish, they can’t see beyond their own needs. Because there really isn’t any excuse for wearing fur.

It’s disgusting. Fur is disgusting. It’s just disgusting there is no getting around it.

I don’t know, I find it truly shocking that it could go on. But I even find it more shocking the information is out there and people aren’t checking it out. I mean in the case of a mink coat, we’re taking about dozens and dozens of animals that line up for that. Chinchilla—outrageous how the number of animals that it takes to make a chinchilla coat. Just, just incredible.

I’ll just be sitting on the couch and he’ll just sit on my lap and watch TV with me, and fall asleep with me. And I mean what’s there not to love? They are so adorable.

And this is what was happening through the cage. (Yeah) That’s why we knew we couldn’t keep them apart. You kind of fall in love with them. They have more personality than some of our friends.

I love you!

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This is Stop Animal Cruelty on Supreme Master Television, with today’s program featuring excerpts from the documentary “Skin Trade.” We now continue with more from this award-winning film.

A lot of times, when an item of clothing is sold and it’s called “faux fur,” it has been found out that actually the faux fur does contain some dog and cat hair from China.

Faux

That is just absolutely despicable. I mean we’re out here trying to do the right thing. We’re trying to buy products that don’t contain these animal products, and we are being lied to.

Of course, there is also the issue of fake fur being, is it? How fake is it?

Americans have been easily defrauded by the faux fur industry.

When I got to Congress, the big issue that came up was the issue of the importation of dog and cat fur from products that were made in China.

So now the fake fur has real fur in it, which is just crazy!!

There have very few environmental regulations, they have no regulations for their fur industry.

Which is why you see such horrific scenes coming out of China. You see people stamping on crates of dogs, cats, raccoon dogs, wildlife…

Hey! Hey! One crate!

Throwing those crates off the tops of trucks…

You see them abusing animals in ways that you would never ever get away with doing on a public street.

A lot of this industry is getting moved to China where there are no laws protecting animals. But I don’t want anyone to be disillusioned to think that there are laws in the US protecting them, because there’s not.

People actually do buy real fur thinking that it’s fake. A lot of that stuff comes in from China, and you can have dog and cat fur that is marked, actually deliberately marked, as faux fur that isn’t at all.

Good morning office of Congressman Jim Moran.

I learned about an act called the Truth in Fur Labeling Act, initiated by Senator Jim Moran, so I decided to give him a call and find out what it was about.

Halo.

I was reading a press release about the Truth in Fur Labeling Act that you introduced, and I just wanted to hear a little bit about that.

I know that most American consumers would not want to buy products that were made of dog or cat fur. The problem is that many Americans do buy products made of dog or cat fur because they don’t know. They read false labels or they buy garments that are not labeled. Currently, the law says that if the product is less than $150, they don’t have to list the types of fur and that’s a loophole that many companies have chosen to exploit.

So as to use dog or cat fur, because in places like China, particularly, it’s very cheap to get dog fur primarily because of the hideous way in which they get the fur. They are brutal, and sometimes they skin them alive. But this is a matter of enabling Americans to know what it is that they are buying, you know we’re not mandating anything but informing the consumer.

Let me get this straight, if somebody walks into a store and they want to buy a coat that has faux fur trim, and it says that the fibers are synthetic, that fur trim could have dog or cat fur in it.

In fact, we have reason to believe it does have dog or cat fur in it. Ninety-six percent of the fur trim to jackets in retail stores were found to be domestic dog, wolf, or raccoon dog, and they were mislabeled or not labeled at all. And that’s why we want this legislation to pass that closes this loophole.

We have a choice. The question is will human beings make the choice. That’s…that’s it, just choose, choose and it ends.

At the end of it all, after you’ve been deceived and lied to, after you’ve paid extravagant amounts of money for that beautiful fur coat, just remember there is someone that was deceived and lied to, more than you ever were. There is someone that paid far more than you for that beautiful fur coat. What would your skin be worth?

The message is clear: To put an end to the ruthless fur trade, we must all do our part by refusing all merchandise with fur and animal skin.

I learned a lot in this film, and I wasn’t aware that 96% of all faux fur contains some cat and dog hair. So it’s going to make me rethink a lot of my choices.

Every person who makes a purchase is voting. If we dare do it, to make the right decision, we can actually stop this from happening. That’s amazing. We really have the power. It doesn’t have to happen, it doesn’t have to happen.

Hi this is Ramy, saying: Be Veg, Go Green 2 Save the Planet!

Hi, I am Shannon Keith. Be Veg, Go Green 2 Save the Planet.

Our sincere appreciation, Shannon Keith and all others who contributed to the making of “Skin Trade,” for permitting us to share your profound documentary. May people across the globe heed your powerful voice and adopt the organic vegan lifestyle for the sake of animals, the planet, and indeed, for humanity.

For more details on “Skin Trade”, please visit www.SkinTradetheMovie.com
For more information on Animal Rescue Media & Education, please visit: www.ARME.tv

Altruistic viewers, thank you for joining us on today’s Stop Animal Cruelty. Now, please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television for Enlightening Entertainment, coming up next after Noteworthy News. May all beings cherish each others’ vibrant company on our beautiful Earth.