Most people longer wear fur coats, but is that trim real or faux?  As a consumer, you have power over corporations to stop the horrible treatment of animals in fur farms and those killed through trapping.

40 million animals are still killed each year to make coats and jackets, all for vanity.  The fur industry would have you believe that fur is a fabric, but it's dead skin that is ripped off the backs of dead animals.  The alternatives available look like the real thing, cost a fraction of the price, cause far less damage to the environment, and inflict no pain on animals.  72% of people polled in the US said they'd rather wear faux.  In the 21st century we have no reason to wear fur.

At least 89 countries have banned the steel-jawed leghold trap, but it is still in use in the US, the largest fur producing and consuming nation in the world.  More than 10 million target animals are captured each year, leaving out the "trash" animals (dogs, cats, birds, and endangered species) killed and thrown away.  If the animal does not die of starvation, dehydration, hypothermia, or predation, the trapper will return to shoot, stomp, or bludgeon her to death.

Animals on fur factory farms fare no better.  30 million animals die on these, raised in barren wire cages, often exposed to extreme heat and cold.  Mink, usually having a territory of 3 square kilometer, are reduced to living in a 12 x 18 inch cage.  Disease runs rampant.  At the end of their short lives they are exterminated by being anally electrocuted, gassed, given a lethal injection, or by having their necks broken.  All for the sake of a coat.

The fur industry is a menace to the environment as well, despite claims that fur is eco-friendly as a "renewable resource".  It takes 4 times more energy to creat a fur coat from trapped animals than it does to make fake fur, and it takes 66 times more energy to make a coat from ranch-raised animals.  Fur processing facilities also leak toxic chemicals into the ground and water, such as formaldehyde and chromium.

Don't buy fur trim either.  It may be less fur, but it is not less cruel.  Trim is not just scraps from all-fur garments, and the trim trade does not place the same emphasis on pelt quality, so animals may be treated even worse.  The number of animals killed for trim will soon outnumber those killed for all-fur garments.

Number of animals killed for an average length fur coat:

Badger:     17
Beaver:     9
Bobcat:     15
Chinchilla: 100
Ermine:     125
Lynx:       11
Otter:      14
Raccoons:   27
Ranch Mink: 35
Red Fox:    18
Rex Rabbits:30
Sable:      70
Silver Fox: 11

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Neiman Marcus currently operates 27 fur departments in the US (including one in fashion valley), supporting the cruel slaughter of millions of defenseless animals.  Help convince Neiman Marcus to become a responsible company and STOP SELLING FUR!