Pony hide lounge sold by Overstock
Sometimes the title seems to say it all:
And sometimes it doesn't.
In the article, above, the "dog" is not a dog at all, but a "raccoon dog" which, despite its name, is actually an animal that is almost identical in every way to the American raccoon.
The inaccurate story in question seems to stem from a Humane Society campaign in which the organization is cynically banging the gong over the fact that the Chinese export raccoon dog pelts.
Raccoon dog? What? The Chinese are exporting the skins of Plott hounds?
No, not quite.
The Humane Society of the U.S. is quite secure that the average American does not know what a raccoon dog really is, and will jump the gun and believe the worst.
In fact the Chinese are exporting the skins of raccoon-like animals that are not a dog in any way, shape or form.
And just to put things into perspective, here in the U.S. we trapped 2.8 million raccoons in 1989 for the export fur trade. That same year, American trappers also harvested from the wild 2.2 million Muskrat, 429,249 Beaver, 398,037 Nutria, 190,221 Mink, 164,487 Red Fox, and 159,043 Coyote.
Did this trapping hurt wild animal populations in this country? Not a whit. In fact, all of the named animals are at a 100-year record for abundance in this country. Raccoon dog is similarly common and abundant (with an expanding range) over much of Eurasia.
What makes Overstock.com's cave-in to the Humane Society particularly absurd, is that this same company has no compunction at all about selling other kinds of animal products, including fur.
Interested in Shearling Lamb? Overstock has shearling jackets and coats, as well as lined boots and slippers. Shearling, for the record, is a skinned baby sheep.
Want a Pony-hide Lounge chair? Overstock is only too happy to sell it!
Want leather items? Overstock has over 4,000 of those, from belts and gloves to purses, coats, shoes and upholstered furniture.
Want shark skin or eelskin products? Overstock has them.
Want to kill your own critters and tan their hides? Overstock sells books to help you learn how to do it, including such little gems as The Ultimate Guide to Skinning and Tanning, How to Tan Skins the Indian Way, and Tan Your Hide!
Of course, if you are a vegan it's not all about leather and fur is it? Overstock also sells rawhide chew toys for dogs as well as over 4,000 items made with goose and duck down, and another 1,500 items made of feathers
As for the sniffing exceptionalists who say killing raccoon dogs for their pelts is different, because at least with chicken, geese and cows, we eat the flesh of the formerly living animal, let me suggest they take some time to study Chinese cooking recipes.
In China folks eat everything that flies, slithers, crawls, hops, or runs including rats, lizards, snakes, turtles, bats, cats and dogs.
Raccoon dog is simply raccoon, and we even eat raccoon in this country, so you know they eat it in China.
So, push-comes-to shove, the folks at the Humane Society of the U.S. are doing nothing more than pushing an extreme animal rights agenda (How can you each chicken!! How can you eat hamburger!!) by cynically pairing ignorance with cultural prejudice.
And the nodding fools at at Overstock.com bought into it.
Nice. So when are they going to stop selling leather purses, wallet, shoes, furniture and watch bands? When are they going to stop selling goose down pillows and quilts?
- Related Posts
** More Than 100,000 Active Trappers in the U.S.
** Rat or Ratatouille?
** Beijing Fast Food at the Olympics
** The High Cost of Animal Rights Rhetoric
** Modern Scientific Trapping
** Red Fox as Litmus Test
** Raccoon Biological History
** The Cull of the Wild
** Why the Humane Society Will Never Change
** Direct Mail Economics of the Humane Movement
** Beyond the Blue Solution of Dog Shelter Death
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