Seals etc... etc...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1094027/LIZ-JONES-Nigella-think-furs-fair--claws-her.html
Nigella may think fur's fair... but now the claws are out for her
Nigella Lawson caused a furore when she said she'd happily kill a bear in the wild and wear its fur. She argued that if you eat meat, you should be aware that animals are killed for food and their skin used for clothing. Here, we ask three top fashion experts to give their views and whether they wear fur. Last updated at 12:52 AM on 12th December 2008

Nigella Lawson has attracted criticism for saying she'd be happy to kill a bear and wear its furLIZ JONES, our style expert and former editor of Marie Claire:A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece celebrating Nigella Lawson's milky curves, applauding her good sense at not conforming to the diktat that women must be thin and young to be beautiful.Well, I take that article back. Nigella stated earlier this week that she could imagine herself killing a bear and wearing its skin. While she was not condoning fur factories, she is glamourising and endorsing the wearing of animal skins. I am so angry at her inhumanity that I am tempted to take an electrode and do to her what the fur farms do to kill their animals, so that she is able to empathise with the sheer brutal ugliness of what it really means to wear fur.What is particularly galling is that while I might expect a model, fashion designer or actress - such as Gwyneth Paltrow, who has a contract with Italian leather goods label Tod's, one of the worst fur offenders - not to appreciate the danger of condoning this industry, I expected more from a grown woman with an Oxbridge education and sufficient wealth never to be in fear of being dropped by anyone. Shall I tell you what it means to wear fur? Eighteen months ago, I went to Canada to bear witness to the annual slaughter of seal pups. This still takes place despite global warming decimating the grey seal population to the brink of extinction - the ice they live on is so thin that pups frequently drown before they are old enough to swim. In the winter of 2006/7, 260,000 drowned in the Gulf of St Lawrence alone. I stood on the ice, compelled by law not to go within 400 yards of the 'fishermen' who kill the seals with a hakapik (which is part club, part hook). The terrified mother seals abandoned their babies and slipped noiselessly into the water.

As each pup was killed and skinned, often while still moving, the fishermen tossed the bodies into a pile. At the end of the day, after the boats had gone, I saw the mothers creep back on to the ice, clamber over the corpses and frantically call for their babies. It is a sound I never want to hear again. Consequently, I find it very hard to sit in the front row of fashion shows where fur is paraded inches from my nose. Protesters from People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals (Peta) stormed the catwalks of Roberto Cavalli and Burberry in Milan a few seasons ago. I was disgusted when the protesters, mainly young girls, were dragged from the catwalk by security men, and all the glossy magazine mavens cheered when the show was able to resume. While most British glossies have a strict 'no fur' policy for editorial photographs, they are happy to take adverts from labels that use fur. When editor of Marie Claire, I mooted the idea to the magazine's publisher that we bar all adverts from such labels, but was told this would be financial suicide. With declining sales and ad revenue, I can only think a truly ethical glossy (which Marie Claire claims to be) is even more of a pipe dream. I bought those Peta protesters a drink in the bar of my hotel in Milan, and they showed me a video of a fur farm in China. I will never forget the sight of a dog whose eyes were still blinking in shock as it tried to look around several minutes after it had been skinned. This was the same video that Stella McCartney, who does not even use leather in her designs, sent to John Galliano. I spoke to him not long after he had watched the video, and he promised to rethink his use of fur. Having attended a Dior couture show recently, I can only think he has early onset Alzheimer's. But, you know what? I don't have to articulate the many reasons why Nigella, Kate Moss and all those other idiotic women who put beauty before compassion should never wear fur. All you have to do is click on the PETA website to watch the film, and weep.

Alexandra Shulman says it's important to know the facts about the fur trade so consumers can make an informed choiceALEXANDRA SHULMAN, editor of VogueWhen I switched on my BlackBerry yesterday morning, I was greeted by a forwarded email from a friend and fellow fashion journalist decrying the practice of skinning animals alive by the Chinese fur trade.Who could not feel sickened at that idea? Then I looked at Nigella on the front page of this paper, in something that resembled a chinchilla wrap and thought she looked glamorous. So, on the subject of fur I am, as with so many things, inconsistent and wishy-washy. In my wardrobe, I have the odd bits of fur - a small tippet collar, a smart duffel coat with a fox-fur hood - but I sort of don't count them in a 'Well, I've owned them for years and I love them' way. In the past, I have owned a mouldy old fur coat. If I didn't edit Vogue, I might even wear the odd rabbit jacket, but British Vogue has a 'no fur' editorial policy and that would make me a little uneasy. We are, to my knowledge, the only Vogue in the world that prohibits fur editorial (possibly bar Australia - and that stance is regarded as most eccentric by many of my foreign counterparts). Whatever my beliefs, the fact we accept fur advertising is an international policy and out of my remit. In America, Russia, France and Italy, fur is big business and popular in the pages. In the UK, all the research I have done shows that by a reasonable margin people would prefer we didn't feature real fur. I don't believe that anyone should be hounded over their choice to wear fur, but I am in favour of us being given all the information necessary to make that choice. Increasing numbers of people are choosing to avoid it and there are some really good fake furs around that are hard to tell from the real thing. The other day, I was wearing a huge brown fur trapper hat and was complimented on it by one and all. Many people asked what kind of fur it was and I was happy to share my secret with them - it was that very expensive and rare breed: acrylic and polyester mix.

Melanie Rickey says Nigella should dump the furMELANIE RICKEY, Grazia's fashion editor-at-largeAre we so uptight as a nation that we fail to see bare-faced logic when it's waving us in the face?Nigella Lawson says she would wear bear fur if she had hunted the animal herself. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, I would say she had romantic ideas of Inuit across Siberia, Greenland and Alaska who must hunt to eat, and traditionally wear the pelts of the animals that nourish them. They kill seal and bear to eat their meat, and use blubber as fuel. Not using a pelt would be a waste of resources for a people who live off the land. It's simple logic, people! On the other hand, Nigella has been photographed wearing a Gucci fur wrap for a fashion shoot in the past - made purely and simply for fashion purposes. So until she makes her opinion on wearing farmed fashion fur known, the jury is out. But there are bigger issues than Nigella at stake here. It's the fur debate and in my mind the answer is simple. In this country, and in the climate we live in, there is no excuse for us to wear fur at all. On a practical level, we don't need to. It's not cold enough. The practice of farming fur was banned in Britain in 2000. And yet whenever there is a cold snap, out come the furs. This year, it seems more fur than ever is being strutted around town by young, fashionable women. Some of them are even walking their dogs - an irony perhaps lost on them. They would do well to sit down and seriously question their morals in order to form an educated opinion, and then take a stance on whether or not they should wear fur. Wearing one canine - a fox - while walking your beloved four-legged friend is just wrong. On Wednesday, at the tea party thrown by Katie Grand to celebrate her new magazine Love, I bumped into model Agyness Deyn, the owner of two small dogs, swathed in an Arctic fox coat. It looked fantastic, yes, but that doesn't make it right. 'I was freezing,' she told me. 'I didn't think it would be as cold in London as it is in New York, so I had to dash into a second-hand shop and saw this fur for £100. It's not bad to wear fur if it's second-hand, is it?' she asked me with genuine concern.
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Some interesting facts about bear furI didn't want to cause a kerfuffle, so I said: 'Well, at least you are recycling it.' But I wish I had given her a kindly lecture. The thing is, if you are going to wear fur, you have to be able to justify it to yourself and others. It's not enough for it to look good. A great place to start is by taking the Inuit approach: if you eat it, you can wear it. If you eat lamb, you can wear sheepskin or Mongolian. If you eat beef, great handbags and shoes are on the menu, too. We do not eat fox, mink, chinchilla and sable in this country. But this year, about 4.5 million fox and 26 million mink will live and die solely in order to provide their fur. Animals farmed for their fur live a hideous life in confinement; this causes them to go crazy. Most farmed mink and fox spend their life self-harming. Then they die - mink are gassed, foxes are electrocuted. And all so a woman who should know better can wear a beautiful garment. Aggy, Nigella, do us all a favour and dump the fur. Hopefully, you can inspire other girls to do the same.
Shooting a bear: the grizzly truthBy BILL VAZNIS, editor of Bear Hunting MagazineI love bears. I love watching them, I love being around them - and I love hunting them. They might look cuddly, but they also taste great in stew. There are two ways to kill a bear: 'Still hunting', where you sneak up on them; or 'spot and stalk', where you lay bait then wait and ambush. Of course, sneaking up on a big black bear in the wild isn't easy, but neither is baiting, as bears are intelligent with tremendous hearing. But, rather like Winnie the Pooh, they can't resist the smell of honey, so take the bait. They are also partial to a pile of doughnuts.I prefer to stalk my bear. First, I find and measure their droppings - these tell me the size, age and sex of the bear. Droppings as big as a coke can are exciting.

Bill Vaznis thinks Nigella would cook a fine bear stew - if only she could huntThen I follow the paw prints, and look for evidence of feeding: trampled blueberry bushes or claw marks on cherry trees they've climbed. When a bear is being followed, it will try to outwalk you by going through heavy terrain, so sticking to the trail takes practice. So does killing it. There's no way you can wrestle a bear - they can kill you with one swipe of a paw. You need a weapon and lengthy target practice: before you take on a bear, you should be able to hit a 10p coin at 20 yards. Hunters use one of three weapons: a bow and arrow, modern rifle or pistol, or a muzzle loader. The latter is a traditional pre-civil war gun, which you load with powder. I like it best because my hero Davy Crockett used one to kill bears, though it takes great skill to use.I always aim for the heart and lungs, hitting just behind the shoulders so the bear will bleed to death within seconds. Sometimes they run, then slump moments later. A well-hit bear does not travel far.We follow the blood trail to the body and gut it, removing all the internal organs and leaving them for scavengers - foxes, wolves and cannibalistic bears.Next we drag the bear to civilisation, though it takes four people to pull: bears can weigh up to 800lb. Back at base, we skin it and send the hide to a tannery to be treated. I quarter the meat, then freeze it. It's great in a stew with potatoes, celery and peas. Tasty. When the fur's been treated, we make a rug or send it to a taxidermist for stuffing. I like to have the dead bears standing around my living room in action poses. I have six stuffed ones in my lounge - one peering into a fish basket, another pulling honey from a log. I've lost count of how many I've killed, but when I got to two dozen I became selective, killing only those big enough to enter the record books at hunting clubs. Once a 400lb bear chased me after I'd shot it with a bow and arrow. I was terrified. He was nipping at my heels, but as I pulled another arrow out he fell over dead. This lifestyle is not for the faint-hearted. The fear factor is part of the appeal, though; bears are bold, powerful and will come after you, especially at night. Yet their hunting is popular in the U.S. - there are more than 100,000 licences held in Washington state alone. As well as black bears, people sometimes hunt brown bears, grizzly bears and polar bears. It's not easy, but it's the challenge that I enjoy. I think it's great that Nigella wants to hunt. It will take her a while to learn, but I bet she'd make a great bear roast.