Thanks to your letters to the European Parliament concerning  the seal hunt in Canada last year, the European Union (EU) responded with a  landslide vote to prohibit the sale of seal based products.  The great  news is it goes into effective this year!  With that measure in place, we  must now continue our focus on flooding Canadian Ambassadors or High  Commissioners with letters supporting the Harb Bill, which would end the  seal hunt in Canada.  The Canadian government must continue to hear  how much we still want the seal hunt to end.  In order to help push this  bill along, we need to make a concerted effort to educate others to take  similar action as well.

We have the unique opportunity to maximize our  efforts this year as there are other significant factors helping to reduce  overall incentives for sealers to kill.  The price for pelts last year  was terrible ($14/ each) and proved to be reason enough for many sealers to  stay home.  Ice conditions were also poor and provided less than optimal  conditions necessary for sealers to run around beating seals.  Under  similar circumstances this year, if sealers are really interested in the hunt,  they will have to spend more money on fuel to travel further north in order to  find more seals and suitable conditions to slaughtering them.  On top of  those factors to consider, they also now have to contend with an EU ban on  seal products, so there aren’t going to be too many buyers for seal skins.

This year, ice conditions are reportedly lower than they  have been in decades.  While this will deter many sealers from going out  to kill animals, poor ice conditions also have a negative impact on seal  populations.  Harp seals require compacted ice in order to give birth and  nurse their young.  Without ice in their normal birthing range, seals  have to travel farther north to find suitable habitat or give birth on beaches  that can be easily accessible by man.  Others may not have time or the  physical capacity to make an extended journey and will be forced to give birth  underwater where the pups will die.

The majority of Canadians are in  favor of the seal hunt ending, as are so many others compassionate  people around the world. The Canadian government must continue to  receive pressure both from within Canada as well as the international  community if the hunt in Canada is ever to end permanently.

For  more information on how you can help, please go to:  http://www.idausa.org/marine_mammals.html

The fur industry has taken a financial hit in recent years, with industry data revealing a reduction in annual global fur sales of roughly $2 billion between 2006/2007 and 2007/2008. These cold financial figures  translate into heartwarming, priceless victories—approximately 10 million animals’ lives saved! And the good news keeps coming. Israel  is on the eve of a global historic precedent for fur bearers, with their government close to passing a bill into law that would ban all fur and make Israel the first fur-free country. This decision will set an example to governments around the world that, here in the 21^st century, there is no excuse for the moral injustice of fur.

IDA knows that when it comes to bringing an end to the fur industry, public opinion matters. Unfortunately, those who profit from torturing and killing these innocent animals share this knowledge, and we still have our work cut out for us. A recent Gallup Poll show an increase in the percentage of American’s who find it “morally acceptable” to buy and wear fur, increasing to 61% in 2009 from 54% in 2008, after a solid three-year decline. One possible contributing factor, the fur profiteers around the world have launched an insidious ad campaign of their own, attempting to greenwash fur as an eco-friendly, renewable, sustainable, biodegradable fabric.  The Fur Information Council of America, for example, misleadingly uses “the natural, responsible choice” as its slogan.

That is why we need your help now more than ever to counter these false claims with our message of empathy that strikes to the heart of this issue, and gives the animals a voice. With one click you can speak up for fur bearing by making a donation to help IDA place more ads like this in cities around the country. These ads are a great investment, with every penny spent representing hundreds of people reached by our message of compassion. Please, donate today. With your help, we will make a difference.

Fur Free Friday in San Francisco’s Union Square was a huge success! We had over 50 activists on a drizzly morning educating San Francisco shoppers about the terrible cruelty of fur. We had a “bunny” and a “doggy” (activists in costume) in cages with images of the horrors of the Chinese fur trade surrounding the cages depicting the anguish in which animals on fur farms suffer before they are brutally killed. Many people stopped to look at the gruesome photos.

Our huge 12 foot tall banner with images of a fox and a rabbit greeted Macy’s shoppers with the message, “Please, don’t buy fur.” Some activists went to leaflet at Niemen Marcus, some at Sacs Fifth Ave, some at Macy’s and some at IDA’s main target, Nordstrom on Market St. Around 2 pm, we marched around Union Square just as the drizzle turned into a steady rain. But it did not dampen our spirits as we chanted “Compassion is the Fashion, Don’t Buy Fur!”

IDA hosted many events on the West Coast where Fur Free Friday participation peaked, including Portland, Oregon where 200 advocates took over the streets with a police-escorted march. Activists carried signs, chanted and marched peacefully to all downtown locations that sell fur, entertained and educated by cheers from the pom-pom-carrying group called the Radical Cheerleaders for Animal Rights. In Los Angeles 100 spirited activists came out to march in Beverly Hills on the sidewalks of Rodeo Drive, stopping at all the locations that sell fur, and their efforts were covered in news stories on three local networks that evening. IDA staff and volunteers presented an eye-catching demo in San Francisco’s Union Square, complete with giant banners and displays with animal-costumed activists “trapped” inside cages.

In solidarity with suffering animals, activists in Boston came out in harsh weather, even after freezing rain had canceled the local group’s scheduled demo. IDA met a handful of these die-hard activists who leafleted the metro stops for 3 hours, handing out over 900 anti-fur leaflets!

Many Fur Free Friday demonstrations across the country occurred outside Nordstrom stores, where IDA has an ongoing focused campaign, determined to make Nordstrom the first major U.S. upscale department store to go completely fur-free. The Nordstrom Campaign was re-launched on Fur Free Friday, and is off to a great start. Activists will be leafleting outside Nordstrom stores through Valentine’s Day, encouraging Nordstrom customers to speak up about fur, and IDA is looking for volunteers to participate. Please contact IDA’s NW Director, Matt Rossell at matt@idausa.org or 503-249-9996, to find out how you can help, and visit our Nordstrom Campaign site for more information.

Hope Bohanec contributed to this post.