DOG AND CAT FUR PRODUCTS FLOODING EUROPE

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The European Union (EU) has taken the lead on numerous animal welfare issues, including bans on cruel battery cages, pig gestation crates, veal crates, and the steel-jawed leghold trap (all still widely in use in the U.S.). That's what makes EU Commissioner David Byrne's refusal to implement an EU ban on dog and cat fur items especially surprising and troublesome. Asian dog and cat fur and skin products have been flooding European markets ever since the U.S. implemented a ban on their import and export two years ago. In response, on November 27, ten out of fifteen EU Ministers of Agriculture asked Commissioner Byrne to implement a similar ban.

Their formal request echoes the sentiments of countless EU citizens who have been appalled by the deplorable conditions under which dogs and cats are raised and killed for their furs in China-- kept in filthy,disease-ridden cages before being strangled, stabbed, and sometimes skinned alive solely for their fur. Aside from the extreme cruelty, dog and cat fur is also a trade issue, and because of a lack of labeling or deliberately deceptive labeling unwary consumers are routinely duped into unwittingly buying products made with dog and cat fur. Yet Commissioner Byrne has countered by insisting that such a ban be implemented separately by each country in the EU. However, the EU has a clear obligation, under its internal market policy, to protect its citizens from consumer fraud.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Sign and send or e-mail this letter: Letter2Byrne.doc

Please contact any friends, family and colleagues in Europe to urge Commissioner Byrne to implement a ban on dog and cat fur products, focusing on the consumer fraud issue.

Although dog and cat fur products are, like all fur products, the result of terrible suffering, the compelling argument for the Commissioner is likely to be the concern about consumer fraud.

European citizens must tell him that they have no confidence in what they purchase as long as cat and dog furs and skins are sold in Europe.

Commissioner David Byrne
Commission for Health and Consumer Protection
Rue de la Loi 200
B-1049 Brussels, Belgium
Fax (from Europe): 0032-2-298-1499
Email: david.byrne@cec.eu.int


ACTION DEMANDED ON CAT AND DOG FUR

BBC News, Monday, 17 February, 2003, 12:33 GMT

Campaigners say cat and dog fur is finding its way to Europe .

Members of the European Parliament are renewing demands for an import ban on cat and dog fur, which they say is finding its way onto European markets.

The fur is used as trims on jackets, handbags and other products, the MEPs say, with customers being misled or deliberately left in the dark about its origins.

The MEPs have signed a letter calling on the European Union to ban the products - although the European Commission insists that it currently has no powers to do so.

"We are appalled by some of the pictures of this trade that we have seen, but we can only act within the laws that we have," says Beate Gminder, spokeswoman for Health and Consumer Protection

Italy has already banned the products, and the commission in Brussels says each individual country within the EU should decide whether it wants to follow suit, given the lack of European legislation.

Campaigners claim that up to two million animals are slaughtered every year in countries including China.

"What we are dealing with here is massive consumer fraud" says Struan Stevenson, British MEP

An investigation by the Humane Society of the USA said cats and dogs were kept in cruel conditions in animal farms, and that many were skinned alive to prevent the furs losing their condition after the animals' death.

The fur finds their way on to the market with misleading labelling, campaigners claim.

"Cat fur might be labelled as rabbit, or dog fur might say 'Asian wolf' ", says Louise Stevenson of the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade.
"There are lots of euphemisms, as manufacturers know that consumers would not buy cat and dog. Some shops are even assured by their suppliers that the fur is fake. If you can have laws to ban child pornography, surely you can ban other things that are morally and ethically questionable" says Ms Stevenson.

British Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson, among those to sign the letter to Mr Byrne, disputes the Commission's claims to be powerless to act. "What we are dealing with here is massive consumer fraud".

Campaigners also insist that the EU has a moral duty to act.

"If you can have laws to ban child pornography, surely you can ban other things that are morally and ethically questionable. I think it is a lack of will rather than a lack of legislation." Ms Stevenson said.

The European Commission says it believes only relatively small amounts of the fur are coming in, although campaigners say there has been a surge into Europe since a US ban on the fur was introduced two years ago.


® Action Against Poisoning -- www.actionagainstpoisoning.com -- e-mail: info@actionagainstpoisoning.com

http://www.actionagainstpoisoning.com/pages/uk/catfur.html -- Last updated on April 6, 2003