"A fur farmer, like any farmer who raises an animal for a finished product, only gets back what is put into the animal. If the animal is mistreated or abused, the end product is worthless on the global market. Because of the financial risk and hard work involved in raising a healthy animal, farmers cannot afford to have worthless livestock due to improper care of the animal's needs."

There is it again, the big lie. It is old, tired and as phoney as a three dollar bill. But the world is full of rubes and no lights go off in their heads when they are sold a bill of goods that is patently fake.

This man is defending a business and all business have this one thing in common: the less you spend on producing your product the greater the profit. Fur farmers spend only enough to keep the majority of their product alive until harvesting. The death of a certain percentage due to cruel conditions is factored into the price of the product.

We have heard pet store owners say exactly the same thing when arguing against us to city councils. And the SPCA has sat there and agreed with the pet store owners, even though the SPCA sees just what we and so many others see: cruel cages with wire bottoms so that maintenance is quick and cheap, dirty cages and untreated disease.

Factory farmers use this specious argument, so do breeders, so does the zoo and aquaruim businesses . In fact, so does everyone who profits from the animal business. The media keeps uncritically repeating it for them and the average person says, "That makes sense, it must be true, those animal activists must be crazy!"