Fur Free Friday

FACT: Each year, more than 50 MILLION fur-bearing animals are slaughtered for fashion.

It’s a fact. A BRUTAL fact.

This fact drives us here at IDA as we re-launch our anti-fur campaign. The kick-off fox fur fundraisertakes place annually on Fur Free Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. It is one of the most widely attended demonstrations in the animal protection movement, always occurring simultaneously outside fur-selling retailers in high-visibility locations nationwide, on the busiest shopping day of the year.

We need your support NOW! It is critical that this event and our entire anti-fur campaign have the resources necessary for real impact.

With your help, we can continue and expand our annual campaign, AND we can intensify our education and outreach campaign for one retailer in particular. With 176 stores in 28 states, and with over FOUR BILLION DOLLARS IN SALES THIS YEAR, Nordstrom is one of the country’s foremost fashion retailers.

Nordstrom is perfectly positioned to make an ethical choice and be the first upscale department store to stop selling fur, leading the way for competition like Saks, Macy’s, and Neiman Marcus to follow suit.

Nordstrom, a fourth-generation family-run business, has come a long way. They no longer have fur salons in their stores, and have removed fur from their private line. Blake Nordstrom, the pleasantly unconventional president of this multibillion-dollar corporation, clearly has a heart. His family loves animals, and they refuse to wear fur themselves. Blake even sat his entire family down to watch undercover footage shot by IDA’s Matt Rossell inside an Illinois fur farm, and was appropriately disgusted.

Working four months undercover on that fur farm left Matt more than disgusted. He now spearheads our anti-fur campaign. Matt shared some of his experiences:

“My heart was breaking every day, and I was so depressed, and even more furious that these poor creatures had to endure the stench, the boredom, and the depravity of this living hell hole, for something as frivolous as a fur coat.

The only thing worse than death for one of these furbearers is their life. Confined inside tiny cages and exposed to harsh weather extremes, they run back and forth across the wire desperate to escape, going mad, sometimes even cannibalizing one another. I personally witnessed … a fur farmer who denied water to foxes dying of dehydration. His rationale: “that’s one less fox I have to kill”. And in the end, death came by anal electrocution, a crude and horribly cruel process.

I made a silent promise to each fox that I wouldn’t let their death be in vain. I would do everything in my power to help end forever this needless suffering.”

Please help end this suffering!

Here is what I need you to do today:

* Mark November 27, Fur Free Friday, on your calendar. If possible, please join with the thousands of other caring people who will march, picket, and educate on this most important day. Visit FurFreeFridayIDA.org for a list of the times and locations of every Fur Free Friday event in the country.
* Please make the most generous tax-deductible donation you can to IDA today. Your donation will be used to produce and distribute videos, place advertisements, and supply thousands of activists across the nation with flyers, brochures, signs and banners.

IDA has a long history as a leader in the anti-fur movement. We have coordinated Fur Free Friday for over 20 years. And the promise that Matt made to each fox that their deaths would not be in vain drove him to lead a campaign that, after a year and a half of weekly demonstrations, forced the 112-year-old Oregon-based Schumacher Furs to close their doors for good! With IDA’s determination and your support even greater victories lie ahead.

Thank you for opening your heart, for being there for our animal friends and for all that you do to make the world a more just and compassionate place for all our fellow beings.

Respectfully,
Elliot M. Katz, DVM
President, In Defense of Animals


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