For Immediate Release
November 9, 2007
Santa Clara, California Fur Store to Close After Activist Attack
Tarlows Furs Calls It Quits After Locks Glued and Walls Painted
Los Angeles- In an email received Thursday by the North American Animal Liberation Press Office, the owner of the building housing Tarlow’s Furs in Santa Clara, California claims his animal-skin purveying tenant is closing up shop. Mike Rugani states that an attack on the shop by unknown activists on October 18 (Read the communique sent by activists here .) cost him over a thousand dollars to repair, and it was the “straw that broke the camel’s back”.
The average fur coat is made from the skins of 20-40 animals, killed most commonly by anal electrocution, neck snapping and gassing with poison. Although some animals are still trapped in the wild using cruel leg hold and body traps, most animals are kept in small cages, imprisoned for life, and forced to endure the intensive confinement of only a few square feet of cage, compared to the miles of territory these animals would enjoy in the wild – their natural state.There is, of course, no reason to use animal skins in clothing, as alternatives keep humans just as warm; its use is purely to make a fashion statement.
In addition to liberating wild animals destined to a certain, painful and agonizing death, another goal of animal liberationists is to cause economic harm to fur farms and retail outlets; dozens of fur farming operations and stores have seen economic ruin since the 1990s. Annually, however, millions of animals are still killed for their fur coats; the UK and a number of other countries have banned the raising of animals for the narcissistic practice of making fur garments.