Angora Rabbit Fur - Cruelty Awareness

Angora Rabbit photo source: www.alpacafarmgirl.com

Please do not buy Angora Rabbit Fur products. These include Angora Fur, Angora Wool, etc.  (please excuse any grammar mistakes or errors in this post, please understand that those errors were overlooked due to my frustration when I was writing this post). I want my friends and readers to be aware of what is happening and how we can make a difference.

Fur in general:

I have loved wearing fur, because of the natural texture and the warmth it produces, besides, I always imagined that the owner of the fur was well taken care of (e.g. wool, where a sheep MUST be shaved or they will overgrow too much wool,or other animals who have outgrown their fur).

Recently, I have had my perspectives changed, no, I still enjoy wearing fur, but only if the animal of the fur/wool is treated right. One of my resolutions is to make sure that the fur I'm wearing was rightfully taken from it's... owner.

So what did I find that caused me to feel terrible? 2 words: Angora Rabbits. Don't get me wrong, they are cute and adorable... what is wrong is how they are mistreated and tortured in exchange for their fur.

About Angora Rabbits:

While browsing the web, I learned about Angora rabbit fur. Angora Rabbits are extremely cute, harmless and have too much fur on them. Sometimes, they need to be shed so that they do not swallow their own fur (unlike cats, they are unable to cough or vomit fur out, as a result, this will lead to Wool Block, which will cause the rabbit to slowly starve to death as it's digestive tract gets filled up with ingested wool).

When I read this, I thought, awesome! I mean, this animal needs to get rid of their fur, and at the same time, we can benefit from this. It is definitely a win-win solution... warmth for us, Angora rabbits can get rid of their fur (so they can be healthy and happy) and we can make use of  their "useless" material.

who can be heartless enough to harm something so adorable?

Apparently, after doing more research... I realized how WRONG I was. I wasn't wrong about the ideal WIN-WIN-WIN solution, but I was WRONG because that is NOT the reality. The Angora Rabbits were actually being mistreated and tortured for their fur.

Angora Fur Cruelty:

Unfortunately, greedy Chinese Angora Fur Farm owners torture these poor Angora rabbits, instead of properly shaving or waiting till the rabbit's fur grows out, they have thought of ways to incorrectly pluck the poor creature. Perhaps, plucking is not the correct way of putting it. They literally rip the fur off them. They rip them out harshly, in a video (you can google this) you can literally see the flesh of the rabbit, all covered in blood after they harshly rip out their fur. Some rabbits die as a result because 1. they cannot endure the pain or 2. their wounds get infected, and they die of infection. (I think the farmers are kind of stupid... when a rabbit dies, don't they end up losing profit because they need to replace that rabbit with a new one?)

"video clip of angora fur harvesting on a mainland rabbit farm, the animal screaming in pain as its hair is ripped out instead of being clipped or sheared." - Andrea Chen
link to article: http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-watches/article/1385942/video-chinese-farmers-ripping-fur-live-rabbits-damages

As I said, I do not mind if they take the animal's fur without harming them, (eg. sheep's wool), as in actually WAITING for the bunny to shed its fur off, or even shaving it's fur... but ripping it off of the rabbit's body is torturing the animal. It is not right, if we are going to "take their fur" at least, we should care about their well being... (you can view images of the end results of this practice...warning, they are extremely disturbing - just search for Angora Rabbit Fur cruelty on Google).

 We need to pressure those farmers, educate them and teach them what is the correct way. We need to do something to save those poor Angora Rabbits... please spread this knowledge among your friends and family. Talk to your local retailers about this... but most importantly... the first step:

please do not purchase Angora Fur products.