hellish tales from China's fur farms

As we continue to look at the groaning of God's creatures, we go from yesterday's bad in Canada's seal hunt to even worse in China's fur farming practices.  I won't lie, this issue encompasses some of the most stomach-wrenching realities I've come across among the many horrors which are perpetrated upon animals here in the U.S. and worldwide. 

I'm very grateful to Michelle Land for writing a response to the video which some of you may have bumped into online, which is virtually impossible to watch.  Michelle, director of Pace University's Academy for Applied Environmental Studies, graciously gave us permission to share "Live Skinning Raccoon Dogs and Other Tales from the Fur Farm" on not one sparrow, originally published at the Animal Blawg:

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Canada's seal hunt

As mentioned in yesterday's post, we're going to be looking at some forms of animal suffering this week which we haven't been able to focus on yet.  One of those tragedies is the annual Canadian seal hunt, which takes place from mid-November to mid-May, and is most heavily concentrated in late March and early April on Canda's east coast, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off Newfoundland.

Some seal hunting also takes place in Namibia, Greenland, Norway and Russia, but Canada is most active by a long shot, with well upwards of 300,000 killed in 2006 and close to 250,000 in 2007, mostly harp seal pups and some hooded and gray seals (Wikipedia).  The Humane Society's "Protect Seals" page says that "Ninety-seven percent of the seals killed in this hunt are babies under just three months of age, and they are utterly defenseless."  The following video is from the 2009 hunt, and contains graphic images, but let's not walk away and forget:

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