In rows of filthy wire cages, a PETA investigator found more than 1,500 terrified foxes pacing and crying out for someone, anyone, to stop their suffering. The relentless stress of being confined to a space little bigger than their bodies for months on end is so overwhelming, some animals chew their own legs to the bone.
For those who survive, their misery comes to a painful end when a rancher pulls them out of a cramped cage, shoves a device in their anus, and electrocutes them—an agonizing and disturbingly common practice across an industry that cares more about the appearance of animals' fur than the torment that this cruel method puts them through.
If they don't die from electrocution, a few animals may regain consciousness as the rancher pulls their skin off so that it can become part of some heartless person's coat.
This groundbreaking PETA investigation led to the first-ever guilty plea by a fur rancher to cruelty-to-animals charges, and it's just one of many milestones in our decades-long campaign to prevent animals from being killed for their skin, feathers, or fur.
It was PETA activists invading Calvin Klein's offices that prompted him to become the very first major fashion designer to drop fur. An eye-opening PETA investigation of the Indian leather trade was the reason fashion giants like Gap Inc. and Florsheim became some of the first brands to stop using leather from India.
It took determined PETA campaigning to persuade Abercrombie & Fitch, Express, Liz Claiborne, and dozens of other companies to enact first-of-their-kind bans on wool from sheep who had been "mulesed"—a cruel and long-held practice in which workers cut huge chunks of skin and flesh from sheep's backsides without painkillers.
With your help, we exposed the Chinese angora farms where rabbits screamed in agony as their fur was ripped out, dealing a devastating blow to the trade in angora wool as dozens of fashion companies quickly banned it from their shelves. Soon afterward, our first-of-its-kind exposé of the mohair trade revealed that terrified goats in South Africa were mutilated and roughly shorn before being killed, leading more than 300 global brands to ban mohair and turning that industry into a shadow of what it once was.
But for all that we're accomplishing together, countless animals are still being horrifically abused for the skin on their backs.
Thanks to the support of our members, PETA is challenging the global skins trade on every front.
Our landmark exposés of the alligator and crocodile skin industry are now leading designers to swear off the exotic skins that are turned into bags, belts, shoes, and watchbands. And a new PETA investigation of an alpaca farm in Peru—the world's largest exporter of alpaca wool—has led major retailer ESPRIT to commit to phasing out its use of wool taken from these wonderful animals.
Right now on fur farms in the U.S., in paddocks in Australia and Peru, and in hideous slaughterhouses in China, animals are being horribly abused for their skin—and we need your help to stop their suffering. Please, make a generous giftduring this "Save Our Skin" Matching-Gift Challenge to help the animals who need us.
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