2009 Events Are A Success!
Chanting slogans like, "Forty dead animals! One fur coat!" and "Compassion is the fashion! Don't buy fur!" animal advocates collectively raised their voices across North America and around the globe last week on Fur Free Friday, the world's largest day of outreach for animal rights. Over 50 separate Fur Free Friday educational events in 25 U.S. states as well as actions in Canada, Germany, and Spain were posted to In Defense of Animal's (IDA) website and occurred on the day after Thanksgiving, November 27. Reports are now coming in with amazing photos and stories of the enormous success of the grassroots effort to raise consciousness about the suffering of over 50 million fur-bearing animals who are abused every year by the fur industry, and encourage people to shun all fur products.
Activists marched, chanted, leafleted and protested at malls, fur salons and retail stores like Nordstrom, Sak's Fifth Ave and Neiman Marcus, all of which are the public face of the fur industry on a day commonly known as Black Friday, which officially marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season. Shoppers everywhere got the message - any way you sell it, package it, dye it, or trim it - fur is unnecessary, cruel and there is no room for this type of suffering and violence for vanity.
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.
Similar "guerrilla theater" events in other cities served to represent the misery suffered by millions of foxes, mink, rabbits and other species kept in squalid conditions, alone in tiny cages where they go mad running back and forth, desperate to escape. Their efforts to get out are only realized at the end of their tortured lives, when these helpless animals are crudely killed by methods including gassing, neck-breaking and anal electrocution. Wild animals trapped for fur fare no better, often suffering for days in painful steel-jaw leg hold traps, many even chewing off a limb to escape.
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's own Annie Judah 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.
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