Fur sure: Overstock.com stops selling "dog" pelts
Overstock.com went fur-free on Thursday -- but not until after discovering that some of the "raccoon fur" it was selling was actually made from "dogs."
The Salt Lake City-based Internet retailer was advised of the substitutions in a letter from the Humane Society of the United States, which detailed numerous other atrocities allegedly committed by "fur factories" and urged the company to stop selling pelts.
"The more we heard about the fur industry, the more we realized we didn't want anything to do with it," said Patrick Byrne, chairman and CEO of Overstock.com, is quoted as saying in an article in yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune.
Byrne said Overstock.com estimates it will lose up to $5 million in pelt revenues.
Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the HSUS, said the decision will pay off in the long run. "While there is this cost, it's our hope that when companies make socially responsible decisions, they attract the support of humane-minded consumers," he said. "Corporate social responsibility must include animal welfare. We have options in our society; we can do better than to kill animals for their fur."
Over the past three winters, the HSUS says it has identified dozens of falsely advertised or falsely labeled garments -- 70 percent of which contained fur from the raccoon dog, an Asian member of the canid family that is commonly skinned in China for its fur.
Among the false names used for raccoon dog fur are: faux fur, ecological fur, polyester, coyote, rabbit, Canis latranis, raccoon and finni raccon.
Comments
It would be easy to say "The only fur you should be wearing is fake fur." That works as long as the fur is actually fake. Somebody pointed out that the best thing to do is to part the hairs of the fur down to the base to be sure the base is a woven or knitted type material. At the base of real fur, you'll find--well, skin. I think a lot of this fur is used to trim parkas, hoods, and hooded jackets.
Posted by: Anne | July 11, 2008 5:17 PM
Good for Overstock.com. Once you've seen a raccoon dog lift its head, blink, and look around after having all of its fur ripped off of its entire body and there are these long dark eyelashes blinking and standing out against a face that's pink because the fur and skin is ripped off of it, it's something you'll never ever forget, nor could we ever begin to even imagine the horror of how painful that is. Wearing fur is horribly cruel for the sake of vanity, no matter which animal it comes from. Besides, it only looks good on its original (live) owner.
I think it was JC Penney that had their employees literally change the labels on coats (instead of actually removing the raccoon dog coats) last year when the HSUS informed them of this same false labeling.
Posted by: Linda | July 11, 2008 9:31 PM
I have never shopped at Burlington Coat Factory for that reason. Years ago they were selling coats made of dog fur. I don't care that it's probably been 10 years and they stopped, I won't ever shop there.
I just can't do real fur. Not a big fan of fake fur either, but never real.
Posted by: Carey | July 12, 2008 8:51 PM