Content warning: this article contains graphic images of animal cruelty

Today, EAST partnered with Swiss Animal Protection and Care for the Wild International to unveil a chilling investigation exposing nightmarish animal cruelty in the world’s largest fur producing country, China.

In recent years, the fashion industry has devoted vast resources to salvaging fur’s battered reputation. The industry likes to promote fur as stylish and luxurious, while claiming that animals used to make fur products are treated with care.

The investigation – which documented operations at China’s largest wholesale fur market in Hebei Province – comprehensively disproves these claims. Horrific scenes captured by investigators show petrified foxes and raccoon dogs beaten in the head by metal and wooden rods. Animals are lifted up by their tails before having their heads repeatedly smashed against the floor.

Workers at the market were filmed slicing open animals’ tails, chopping off their limbs, and peeling off their skin. Harrowing footage shows animals struggle and moan throughout the entire process. In some cases, animals can be seen breathing even after their whole body has been skinned. One particularly graphic scene shows a racoon dog battling to lift its head as it looks towards its blood-soaked body.

The investigation also documented brutal conditions on fur farms. Sensitive, active animals are trapped in barren wire cages from birth until slaughter. Animals can be seen pacing in circles or shaking their heads, frustrated by their impoverished confines. Mountains of excrement pile up underneath the cages, which are arranged in rows about half a meter off the ground. The farms supply fur to over 1,000 distributors in the Hebei market, which resell the fur to larger wholesalers or fashion manufacturers.

Taiwan has observed a startling rise in fur imports in the past five years, according to customs data. Imports rose fivefold between 2001 and 2003, while the share of imports originating in China jumped 21% in a single year.

A single fur coat requires up to 20 foxes or 80 minks. Using average coat weights, an estimated 110,000 animals have been killed to meet the demand of the domestic market in the past five years.

Yu-Min Chen, director of EAST, expressed that foxes, minks and racoon dogs are sensitive animals which are easily frightened and not suited to confined living spaces.

“Fur is a natural adaption to stave off the cold. Today, humans wear fur coats as a shallow display of status and wealth. This narcissistic desire has created an industry which thrives on unconscionable animal suffering” she said.

As a growing list of countries move to ban fur farming, China has become the world’s largest producer with approximately 95% destined for international markets. China has no national animal protection law and a poor reputation for the treatment of animals.

After unveiling the investigation, animal protection groups called on consumers and designers to leave fur where it belongs ‒ on its original owner ‒ and denounce animal cruelty for the sake of fashion.

Chen Man-Li, managing director of the Homemakers United Foundation, echoed the call for a switch to modern, humane materials.

See the full investigation: The Nightmarish Cruelty Behind Fur

Translated by Karen Lu