Animal-Derived
Products
Alpaca
This fibre - it's a hair rather than a wool - comes from the alpaca, a
relative of the llama, domesticated in the Andes for over 6000 years.
Angora
Angora
is a fibre obtained from a special breed of rabbit. China and South America
provide the bulk of the trade, which amounts to 4000 tonnes a year. The
rabbits are not killed for their wool, but sheared regularly. Each rabbit
will give between 200g and 1500g of wool a year. However, they are kept
in cages in much the same way as rabbits bred for meat, and as they have
a longer commercial life than meat rabbits, their suffering might be
said to be even worse. Males have only about 75% of the wool yield of
females, so are often routinely killed at birth.
Cashmere
Genuine Cashmere must be one of the most expensive fibres there is. It
comes from the underbelly of a special breed of Himalayan goat (it's the
animal's natural protection from the severe cold) and it is obtained by
combing each goat by hand during the moulting season. One goat yields only
about 4oz of cashmere per year and on average, it takes the yield of three
goats to make one sweater. Of the world's cashmere 85-90% comes from China.
Down & Feathers
Many duvets are filled with down, the very soft feathers from the breasts
of geese and ducks. Chickens and turkeys don't produce down. Down can be
obtained by plucking, but over 90% is a slaughterhouse byproduct, and even
the birds that have been plucked end up on the table soon afterwards. Most
down is produced in the Orient, Canada and Europe.
Beauty
Without Cruelty charity
reports (summer 1992) that in Hungary, France, Israel and China, live
geese have their feathers ripped off, a process that may be repeated
every 8 weeks for about 3 sessions until the bird is killed for food
or force fed to make pate de foie gras.
The female eider duck plucks
down from her breast to line her nest After the chicks have grown up
and abandoned the nest, the down can be collected by anyone brave enough
to face the climb up the cliffs! A pound of eider down sells for 300
dollars so it's not easy to find items made from down collected in
this way.
Ostriches are farmed for meat,
leather, eggs and feathers. In 1982 South African farms produced 741,000lbs
of feathers worth 2 million pounds (figures from Turning Point, Aug
91). The feathers are plucked from breeding birds every nine months
or so. A British producer describes how birds are immobilised in a
wooden V shaped crush, while feathers are cut off. The quills are left
behind to die and fall out. In the wild, ostriches live for about 75
years; ostriches farmed for meat, leather and feathers are slaughtered
at 12-14 months and so enjoy just a fraction of their normal lifespan.
Their natural habitat is the open plains of Africa where they can run
at speeds of up to 40mph. Farmed ostriches are kept in pens of quarter
to half an acre per pair and in America, may be kept in truly intensive
conditions, ie indoors.
Fur
Most people know about the cruelties
involved in obtaining fur. The animals are either trapped wild or farmed.
Both methods of production involve cruelty.
Wild trapping can mean endangered species being wiped out, besides the
individual suffering of animals caught in steel-jawed leghold traps. Some
animals go to desperate lengths to escape, often gnawing off part of their
own leg or paw. The traps do not discriminate, so other animals may also
be destroyed or maimed, including some domestic animals. As many as 50%
of the animals caught in traps will be no use to the fur trade, which refers
to them as "trash animals". Farmed animals, principally mink and arctic
fox, are kept imprisoned all their lives in tiny cages. Fur farming is
a vast industry with more than 40 million animals being raised in intensive
conditions, mainly in North America and Scandinavia. Consider what it must
be like for a creature like the arctic fox, which naturally roams a territory
of about 15,000 acres, to spend its life in a cage measuring just a few
cubic feet. Animals like mink are often
introduced into a country by accident when they escape from fur farms,
posing a threat to native wildlife. For example, it was reported in
New Scientist (30.3.91) that water voles in North Yorkshire are under
threat from mink who not only prey on them but also take over their
breeding sites. The mink population is increasing but the future looks
bleak for the voles. In Britain, there is no legal requirement for
the farmers to be trained in methods of slaughtering their livestock.
More Information:
- Operation
Fur Factory,
PO Box 87, Rochdale, Lancs, OL16 1AA.
- No
Fur Campaign, WSPA,
Park Place, 10 Lawn Lane, London, SW8 1UD. Tel: 071 793 0540
- Respect
for Animals,
PO Box 500, Nottingham NG1 3AS.
Leather
Should vegetarians wear leather? That's a question we hear all the time.
Some people think it is OK because leather is just a by-product of the
meat industry and the animals weren't killed just for their skins. Others
seem to believe that there's a strong chance the animal died naturally.
But neither excuse really holds water. Very few farm animals in this country
ever reach the natural end of their lifespan, most are killed when they
are little more than adolescents. The remaining ones go for slaughter because
they are worn out by a lifetime of continuous breeding and/or lactation
and artificially heightened fertility. The leather we like best, soft leather,
doesn't come from old cows at all, it comes from calves and the softest
leather of all comes from unborn calves whose mothers have been slaughtered.
And leather might be just a byproduct, but it's a very important one for
the meat trade. About 10% of the value of the animal at the abattoir is
in its skin, worth about 650 million pounds a year in the UK, so by buying
leather, we are helping to support the meat industry.
Domestic animals
aren't the only ones to be used for leather production, the list includes
deer,
alligators, crocodile, toads, ostriches (see under DOWN & FEATHERS),
kangaroos, lizards, snakes and seals. Many of these are already endangered
species but the high prices commanded by their skins make it very tempting
for impoverished natives to poach. And although we are far from convinced
that death in a slaughterhouse is humane, some attempt at least is
made to stun the animals first. Wild species killed for leather have
no protection at all, they may be clubbed to death or caught in cruel
traps. A report in the American magazine Animals Agenda (March 1991)
suggests snakes and lizards are routinely skinned alive because dealers
believe this makes the finished skin more supple. Studies by herpetologists
found that alligators and other reptiles could survive live skinning,
taking nearly two hours to die afterwards.
Finding alternatives to leather
is not quite as easy as finding alternative vegetarian foods, but we
should certainly do what we can. For example, no-one needs to buy handbags,
purses, wallets and belts made from leather, plenty of acceptable alternatives
are available. Finding alternatives to leather clothing designed specifically
for protection, like heavy-duty shoes and motorcycling leathers is
not so easy but do keep on asking. It is very important to let manufacturers
and retailers know that there is a demand for alternatives to leather.
Some people will say that leather
is a natural, eco-friendly product but the leather industry is a major
source of pollution. Tanneries are often sited near rivers as the process
needs a plentiful supply of water and the waste - including hair, salt,
lime, sludge, acids and chrome - is discharged into the river.
More information from:
- Campaign Against Leather
and Fur, BM 8889, London WC1N 3XX
Mohair
This is the product of the white Angora goat. It's a long fibre, coarser
than cashmere. Very large herds of up to 20,000 Angora goats are kept in
South Africa and Texas, purely for mohair production.
Silk
Silk comes from silkworms, which are not true worms but the caterpillars
of the silk moth, Bombyx mori. The caterpillars will only eat mulberry
leaves and when they are ready to pupate, they protect themselves by spinning
the silk round and round themselves to form a cocoon. Typically, each worm
produces a mile and a half of continuous thread. When metamorphosis is
complete and the moth is ready to leave its cocoon, it secretes an alkali
which eats its way through the thread. This spoils the thread for spinning
as it is no longer continuous. So, in order to get good quality silk, the
moths must be killed before they leave the cocoon. This is done by suffocation
with steam or heating them in an oven. Only a small number necessary for
breeding the next generation are allowed to complete their lifecycle. Whether
or not the pupae feel any pain whilst being suffocated or subjected to
heat is debatable, but most vegetarians consider silk is not acceptable
as it cannot be produced without the death of a living creature. Wool
In Britain at least, wool production is just a byproduct of the meat industry,
as British wool doesn't command a high enough price to make it worth keeping
sheep for their fleece alone. The sheep have to be sheared because the
fleece gets so heavy and thick, they would suffer from heat-stroke during
the summer if it were left on. However, this isn't a natural condition.
Wild species of sheep survive without shearing. Through generations of
selective breeding humans have changed the characteristics of the fleece
to suit themselves, not the sheep. British wool tends to be used for coarse
fabrics like carpets. The fine wool needed for good sweaters etc comes
from Merino sheep, a breed that originated in Spain but which is now kept
in vast numbers in Australia. About 70% of the wool used for clothing comes
from Australia, where the practice of mulesing, where folds of skin under
the sheep's tail are removed without an anaesthetic to form a wool free
scar to discourage blow flies, is common. Approximately 27% of UK wool
is skin wool, ie obtained from slaughtered sheep, mainly lambs.
Felt
Felt is a material produced by a process that mats and hardens the fibres.
Felt is usually made from wool, but it can be made from fur. You should
be careful buying a felt hat as it may be either. Rabbit skin is often
the source of fur for felt hats.
Plant
Fibres
Cotton
Cotton
is, of course, a plant product but there are various environmental
considerations to be taken into account, like the heavy use of pesticides,
dyes and other chemicals in the finishing process causing pollution.
Cotton is the most widely used natural fibre, grown in 80 countries
occupying 30 million hectares, it represents 5% of the world's agriculture
and uses 50% of the world's insecticides, and has an annual value of
24 billion dollars. Cotton has been used as a textile in Asia and America
since prehistoric times, but it did not become important in Europe
until the 17th and 18th centuries. The biggest growers are China, USA,
Soviet Union, India, Pakistan, Brazil, Turkey and Egypt. Pesticides
are a particular problem in third world countries as peasant farmers
dependent on cash crops can increase their yield by as much as 200%
with only four applications. DDT is still used in the developing world
where it is often too hot for the correct protective clothing to be
worn. Instances of poisoning by inse ticides are probably higher than
reported. (Figures from The Guardian 29.10.90).
Unbleached cotton garments are
quite widely available.
Linen
Linen
is also a vegetable product, being derived from the Flax plant, Linum
usitatissimum. Flax is one of the world's oldest cultivated plants.
The fibres are extracted from the plant by a process called retting.
Rayon
The
raw material for rayon is eucalyptus trees, but it requires chlorine
in the early stages of production, which in turn causes pollution by
organo-chlorine compounds including dioxin.
Synthetics
Synthetic
materials are usually oil-based with about 25 thousand barrels of oil
a day being used to manufacture materials. Oil is a non-renewable resource
and the petro-chemical industry can cause serious pollution. Synthetics
are not biodegradable. The production of nylon leads to large quantities
of nitrous oxide being emitted. Nitrous oxide is one of the gases responsible
for the greenhouse effect.
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