China Flaying Animals Alive **Upsetting Article**

**I have not added the pictures shown in this article as I found them far too upsetting/disturbing and felt it would upset to many members**

The newest controversy over exports from China has caused nightmares for researchers documenting the abuse inflicted on animals bred and raised in tiny cages and then skinned alive for their fur.

WND has reported multiple times on problems with exports from China, with poison found in pajamas, consumers warned against using ginger, an alert about the dangers from China's pickled vegetables and even the dangers from honey and fireworks.

Now comes word from an extended investigation into the fur trade that China is estimated to produce approximately 85 percent of the world's fur products – and it has virtually no regulations or rules for the treatment of the animals.

According to Mark Rissi, a spokesman for Swiss Animal Protection, which has documented abuse of animals raised for their fur as early as 1983, the China project has been going on for several years.

The organization's report has been made available online, with dramatic images and descriptions that researchers found more than disturbing.

"As animals are considered objects in China, there is little or no awareness for the suffering of these sentient beings," Rissi told WND from his European base of operations via e-mail. "The cruelty found was beyond our expectations, and it was hard to document without interfering. It caused nightmares to the team, especially in the editing room, because the scenes had to be replayed and replayed to be edited from six hours down to 20 minutes."

Rissi said the actual onsite investigation was done by his organization's staff members as well as trusted Asian animal protection supporters, but as fur production was not a controversial subject, "people willingly showed their farms to the team."

He said he's glad other organizations, such as the U.S.-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, have joined in his group's campaign.

"Our main goal was to get this distributed because we want consumers worldwide to be aware about the cruelty involved in the fur fashion," he said.

"People have a right to know that a huge percentage of fur is imported from China, which doesn't have any federal laws protecting animals on fur farms. People who might contribute to this atrocity by purchasing fur or fur-trimmed garments need to know about the horrible suffering of the animals who wore that skin first," PETA spokeswoman Melissa Karpel told WND.

"We want them to see how fur farmers slam terrified animals — including raccoon pups — on the ground and skin them while they're still conscious. People need to know what they're really buying when they buy fur or fur trim," she said.

"Conditions on Chinese fur farms make a mockery of the most elementary animal welfare standards," the Swiss report said. "This report shows that China's colossal fur industry routinely subjects animals to housing, husbandry, transport and slaughter practices that are unacceptable from a veterinary, animal welfare and moral point of view."

PETA has posted a Swiss Animal Protection video on its U.S. site, documenting the bloody violence prevalent in the Chinese fur industry.

The report contained the testimony from witnesses to a dog slaughter:

Once pulled out from its cage, the raccoon dog curls up into a ball in mid-air. … One woman in a headscarf is first to grab hold of the raccoon dog's tail and the others drift away peevishly. The woman in the headscarf swings the animal upwards. It forms an arc in the air and is then slammed heavily to the ground, throwing up a cloud of dust. The raccoon dog tries to stand up, its paws scrabbling in the grit. The wooden club in the woman's hand swings down onto its forehead. The woman picks up the animal and walks toward the other side of the road, throwing it onto a pile of other raccoon dogs. A stream of blood trickles from its muzzle, but its eyes are open and it continues to repeatedly blink, move its paws, raise its head and collapse to the ground. Beside it lies another raccoon dog. Its four limbs have been hacked off but still it continues to yelp.

The report then graphically describes how the dogs are skinned, sometimes while they are living.

Rissi noted that the Humane Society of the United States also has worked on the investigation, citing well-known U.S. companies, including J.C. Penney, Burlington Coat Factory, Bloomingdale's, Sak's Fifth Avenue and Macy's, for selling Chinese-produced fur products, sometimes labeling them as "faux fur" or raccoon when the actual product is from a raccoon dog.

The Swiss Animal Protection report said slaughter methods range from beatings with a metal or wooden stick or swinging the animal until it slams to the ground.

Then they are skinned.

"They struggle and try to fight back to the very end. Even after their skin has been stripped off breathing, heart beat, directional body and eyelid movements were evident for five to 10 minutes," the report said.

The process is repeated millions of times, as China processes up to 100,000 pelts in a day at times.

The Swiss organization said China should pass a national animal welfare law, prohibit skinning live animals, prohibit inhumane treatment and slaughter methods, and the rest of the world should shun the use of fur.

Swiss Animal Protection is the umbrella organization of 58 regional animal protection associations in Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and biggest animal protection organization operating throughout Switzerland.

I know it's awful isn't it, I once watched a video (training session) when I worked at the RSPCA about cruelty in other countries and it made me sick physically. I'd never go to those countries and try hard not to buy anything made in them

If nobody bought fur (even faux fur) this would stop.

eta: this includes `antiques` BTW! We were donated some furs to use as costume for a play and our wardrobe mistress gave them a decent burial. As she pointed out, selling them on just makes you part of the crime.

Because people are so vain and so gready like all primitive peoples before them they think that wearing the skin of another very beutifull animal will make them look good, have humans not evolved very far from their cave dwelling ansestors all these stars and rich people who feel so inadicate that they need to look and feel like these creatures are very sad and shallow if they realy wanted to be beutifull people they would be among the first to stop this trade and perhaps teach China that all creatures are not objects for them to do as they like,the nation would find a better plase in the harts of the rest of the world if they showed compassion to other creatures and amend their long history of cruelty.....

Sadly nothing they do in China surprises me, they are a brutal nation, i have seen programmes on how they treat their children so animals have no chance.

Very sad

When their human rights record is so disgusting those poor animals have no chance.

I once watched a video on here showing the skinning of dogs and the way they were transported. Those images have stayed in my mind ever since and I doubt will ever go........

They have no respect for life in China, the suffering is nothing to them, they take their children to watch animals being treated cruelly, and killed and its a day out ! I won't buy anything Chinese, they should not have had the Olympics in my opinion, I wouldn't watch any of it because it was there. I used to have a sticker in my car and it said "Fur coats are worn by beautiful animals, and ugly people". Enough said..............

Agree on that one, their human rights is none existent , so animals stand no chance.

I had never thought of the poor people who do so many hours of sickening work just to let us know what is going on
Without their efforts I really thought the fur trade was better than it had been
How wrong I was

I cannot even imagine how someone can do something so cruel, and worse still to not even realise it is cruel

I havent seen any of this stuff but as soon as I read the title the image from that fur program the other month of the skinned fox blinking just came right into my head

People NEED to know
Most people here who wear fur cannot be aware of where it came from
and the fact that designers are usisng fur again has to be stopped

The way I view this is: the people of China are extremely poor. The type of person who does this job needs to put food in their children's mouths. If the person has done this job all their life (and probably their parents did the same job and teir children will do it too) then they will be immune to any suffering of the animal. I don't think we can change a cultre such as China - they view animals as objects. That is not going to change any time soon.

But someone from the West who wears fur is IMO a million times more barbaric than the Chinese person who has skinned the animal. Someone from the West supposedly comes from a culture where it is known that animal are sentient: they feel pain and fear. Knowing that and stil wearing the fur is unforgivable.

Like people have said for years and years: if there was no demand for fur then these despicable practices would stop.