It happened over 300 years in Holland

The Evil Fur Trade

Read "The Evil Fur Trade" and then answer the questions that follow it.
Ten million animals are trapped for their fur each year. The United States, Canada, and Russia produce most of the world’s wild fur. Every time an animal is trapped for its fur, approximately two "non-target" animals are also caught. These non-target animals include squirrels, opossums, dogs, cats and even endangered species and birds of prey that are attracted to the food around the snares or inside the cages.
The steel jaw leg-hold trap is the most common kind of trap used by fur trappers, followed by the wire snare and the Conibear body-gripping trap which crushes the animal.
Eighty-eight countries and five US states have banned the leg-hold trap because it is so cruel and because it simply traps any animal that steps into it. However, the US Congress has not yet banned this device, despite surveys showing that 74% of Americans oppose it.
Animals are left in these traps for between one and three days, and sometimes longer. The animals often die from starvation, hypothermia, dehydration or an attack by another animal. Otherwise, the trapper shoots them, stomps them or clubs them.
Many animals chew off their own limbs in a desperate attempt at escape. This is especially common in racoons. A 1980 study found that as many as one out of every four racoons caught in a leghold trap would chew its foot off to escape. Some companies manufacture padded leghold traps to make them seem less cruel. Animals caught in padded traps are still exposed to the weather and predators until the trapper returns to kill them. Research has shown that padded traps cause injury to 97% of the coyotes that they ensnare. Many animals knock out their teeth as they bite at the jaws of the traps.
There are 150,000 trappers in the United States. Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan are the main trapping states.
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Zoos are an unsuitable environment for wild animals and should, therefore, be abolished. Firstly, zoo animals are kept in a very confined area compared with their vast natural habitat. Secondly, breeding programmes are far less successful than zoos claim. Thirdly, zoo animals are exposed to many diseases and other dangers.
Zoo animals are usually kept in very cramped enclosures and do not behave like their wild counterparts. Polar bears, for example, are given about 10 metres of walking space whereas in their Arctic home they roam for many hundreds of kilometres. Similarly, primates, big cats and birds are often confined in cages where they lack exercise and stimulation. Many animals develop unnatural habits such as pacing back and forth or swaying from side to side.
Supporters of zoos argue that they help to conserve endangered species, but in fact they are not very good at this. Even the world famous panda breeding programme has been very costly and unsuccessful. Also, zoo life does not prepare animals for the challenges of life in the wild. For example, two rare lynxes released into the wild in Colorado died from starvation even though the area was full of hares, which are a lynx’s natural prey.
The zoo is an unnatural environment that exposes animals to numerous dangers. Diseases often spread between species that would never live together naturally. For example, many Asian elephants have died in US zoos after catching herpes from African elephants. Furthermore, zoo animals are often exposed to chemicals, solvents and other toxic substances. Finally, it is common for visitors to tease and provoke caged animals.
In conclusion, therefore, it is not true to say that zoos are educational or that they help to protect endangered species. In reality, they only teach us how wild animals behave when they are confined in small spaces. Breeding programmes provide zoos with good publicity, but in fact most of them are failures. Finally, zoo animals are probably more at risk of dying from disease or poisoning than their wild counterparts. It is time that we abolished these cruel institutions!
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