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 Fur
Farm Exposé
Shocking Cruelty on a California Chinchilla Farm
Read about the case that resulted in cruelty charges against a California
furrier who was caught electrocuting chinchillas by clipping wires
to the animals’ genitals.
Genital Electrocution: A Real-Life Shock-Horror Story
Row after row of tiny wire-mesh cages, stacked four high and about
25 in a row, chinchillas peering watchfully through the wires, a rack
of pelts hanging on a far wall, and except for a radio playing softly
in one corner of the room, a morgue-like hush. That’s the scene
that two PETA investigators found at a fur "factory" farm
secluded in a quiet, snow-covered town in Michigan. PETA’s Research
& Investigations Department sent two undercover teams into fur
"farms" in five states. Our investigators witnessed not
only how animals live, but also how they die in the seedy world of
fur farming. One method they documented had never been made public
before: genital electrocution.
Little Animals, Big Suffering
During genital electrocution, the killer attaches an alligator clamp
to the animal’s ear and another to her labia and flips a switch,
or plugs the wire into the wall socket, sending a jolt of electricity
through her skin down the length of her body. She jerks and stiffens.
But, according to biologist Leslie Gerstenfeld-Press, although the
electrical current stops the heart, it does not kill her: In many
cases, the animal remains conscious. The electrical current causes
unbearable muscle pain, at the same time working as a paralyzing agent,
preventing the victim from screaming or fighting. A chinchilla farmer
who uses genital electrocution told our investigators that he leave
the clips on "for one or two minutes" to make sure the heart
doesn’t start up again but that sometimes animals revive and
those who do remember the pain. In front of our investigators, one
rancher unplugged the animal, listened to the heart and said, "Nope,
still beating," and plugged the cables back in for another 30
seconds.
Not Killing Them Softly
As one farmer observed, "Sometimes you’ll get one that’ll
argue with you." The chinchillas, like all animals, do not go
willingly; although they make no noise as they wait—held upside
down as the rancher attaches the clips—their whiskers and mouths
tremble constantly until the electrical charge freezes all movement.
For the benefit of our investigators, the farmer laid the animal’s
body on a table, although normally, he said, he would just hang the
animal by the tail from a clip.
For small animals, neck "snapping" or "popping"
is easy and cheap. The owner of one farm that PETA visited wraps the
fingers of one hand around the neck of the chinchilla, grasps the
lower body with the other hand and jerks the animal’s vertebra
out of the socket, breaking the neck. Neck-snapping takes just a second,
but for "about five minutes" afterward, according to one
rancher, the animal jerks and twitches. It might take two minutes
for an animal to become brain-dead from cervical dislocation; in the
meantime, as shown in our investigator’s video, she or he kicks
and struggles.
No federal law regulates the killing of animals raised for fur. The
methods vary from one company to another, but all emphasize concern
for the pelt, not for the animal. It takes at least 100 chinchilla
pelts to make just one full-length coat.
Click below to read more about animals suffering on fur farms.
Ranch-Raised
Fur: Captive Cruelty
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