This Made Me Feel Guilty About Wearing Fur Felt Hats

fenris · Feb 25, 2013

Someone just shared this on Facebook and when I watched it, I just felt guilty about wearing fur felt hats.

[video=youtube;DE56fAD3HyE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE56fAD3HyE[/video]

I was now wondering if other fur farms where most felt makers get their fur are like this one in China.

Is there even a more humane method of extracting the fur from rabbits? I hope in other fur farms they at least kill the animal before skinning 'em. :eeek:

mayserwegener · Feb 25, 2013

If it bothers you that much you can always buy vintage fur felt hats.

Mulceber · Feb 25, 2013

Or buy beaver felt - from my knowledge, most of the beaver felt bodies came from wild beavers, which are caught in under-water traps that kill them via drowning. Much more humane than what those poor rabbits in China go through. -M

jlee562 · Feb 25, 2013

or an Akubra made in Australia where non-native rabbits are a pest species.

CaramelSmoothie · Feb 25, 2013

Mulceber said:
Or buy beaver felt - from my knowledge, most of the beaver felt bodies came from wild beavers, which are caught in under-water traps that kill them via drowning. Much more humane than what those poor rabbits in China go through. -M

Yikes! Underwater drowning is considered more humane? I collect vintage hats and it's so easy to forget how something as simple as a hat can represent so much suffering for some animal somewhere.

Mulceber · Feb 25, 2013

Compared to being skinned alive? Yes.

Shangas · Feb 25, 2013

jlee562 said:
or an Akubra made in Australia where non-native rabbits are a pest species.

Rabbits in Australia are a pain in the ass to farmers, because they dig up their fields and destroy their crops.

If you're feeling worried, buy a rabbit-felt hat made in Australia. We can assure you that you're doing our country a favour.

Not only do you keep down a pest-population, but you get a nice fuzzy hat out of it at the same time.

fenris · Feb 26, 2013

I do have an Akubra... Hehe.

DJH · Feb 26, 2013

Pests or not, that is very nasty.

To be honest, any industry that relies on killing animals is usually awful. I've worked installing equipment in many meat producing companies, in the US and other countries. Almost without exception they are the dirtiest, nastiest places. I've often gone weeks without eating any meat as a result of working in these places.

Interesting though that women get aggravation for wearing fur coats while we happily wear our fur felt hats and they are not really associated of having been produced from animals.

I think that's a good thing!

mayserwegener · Feb 26, 2013

Yes most people have no idea about fur felt process.

feltfan · Feb 26, 2013

I would feel guilty about wearing a cheap hat from China even if they were nice to the animals.
There is no guilt in vintage.

facade · Feb 26, 2013

fenris said:
Someone just shared this on Facebook and when I watched it, I just felt guilty about wearing fur felt hats.

[video=youtube;DE56fAD3HyE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE56fAD3HyE[/video]

I was now wondering if other fur farms where most felt makers get their fur are like this one in China.

Is there even a more humane method of extracting the fur from rabbits? I hope in other fur farms they at least kill the animal before skinning 'em. :eeek:

There are more humane methods but they would increase the costs. The cheap products we import are made using countless practices we could not stomach here in the states. Yet we have chosen to look the other way because the products are so much cheaper when made by slave labor. I bet we'd feel guilty about buying that big screen TV if we knew everything about how it was made.

I personally would rather pay more and know I was getting a quality USA made product then to continue to export jobs to the far east. But that battle has been lost. Its either go without or hold your nose and don't ask how the sausage is made.

-30- · Feb 26, 2013

Both she & they, (peta) can pound salt.

-30-

scooter · Feb 26, 2013

In China (and some other countries) they eat cats, which I happen to hold in high regard. I watch a secret video of them using a snare to pull a cat out of a cage, then plunging the poor creature into a vat of extremely hot water, still alive and swirling it around to help remove the skin and fur. Had I the means, I'd love to plunge a few of them into that water and swirl them around for a bit!

Not to get into another conversation entirely, but how many times must we as a country get screwed by these "bargain" production countries, before we learn our lesson? Dead pets from tainted treats, lead painted children toys, etc., etc., etc.

barrowjh · Feb 26, 2013

I wonder where all those cages of dogs and cats really came from. We have big problems in the US trying to deal with all the dogs and cats that end up in shelters. Despite desperate pleas for adoption, many end up euthanized anyway. I wonder if what we saw in that video was the result of doing a weekly or monthly visit to various shelters and picking up the strays.

There is no way to rationalize the fur farm other than to accept that it is the free market, even if it is a sort of black market within a communist nation. Stories about the market places in London in the times that Dickens wrote of - those were not pretty images either. Easy for us to condemn the barbarism in those pictures, but most of the people in those films are desperately poor, except maybe the ones behind the camera. It is difficult to reconcile with a culture that is very different from ours.

edited to add - we afford (or think we can afford) a safety net that facilitates our ability to move beyond barbarism.

Sprinkles · Feb 26, 2013

scooter said:
Not to get into another conversation entirely, but how many times must we as a country get screwed by these "bargain" production countries, before we learn our lesson? Dead pets from tainted treats, lead painted children toys, etc., etc., etc.

This is a good point. Also, about feeling guilty I am with the voices that say vintage shouldn't have guilt associated with it. In fact you are being more useful by utilizing these items that were made decades ago. I have two fur felts, and they were made decades before I was even born! I had no control over the production in this case, it has already been made so I actually feel better about being a little more sustainable by using essentially hand-me-downs.

scooter · Feb 26, 2013

Good points all, John, the slaughterhouses of Chicago in the 1900s represented horrific conditions, and not just for the animals. Even today, we find examples of unspeakable cruelty here in our own country.

scooter · Feb 26, 2013

Another astute observation, Sprinkles.

besdor · Feb 26, 2013

The truth is that most customers have NO idea thats hats are made of rabbit felt. When we tell them they think we are joking. Most people thibk hats are made of wool.
Too bad no one can come up with a synthetic fur to replace rabbit and beaver felt.

Garrett · Feb 26, 2013

This video makes one want to sell the entire collection.

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