Can angora production ever be ethical?
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Version 0 of 1. We'll always have Paris, Texas. But now we've seen the video of a Chinese angora farm, will we ever look at Nastassja Kinski's backless sweater in the same way again? A rabbit is screaming, as best it can, while chunks of its wonderful soft fur are ripped away to leave just a bald, raw and bleeding body. Rows and rows more rabbits are locked alone in filthy cages, waiting for their turn. These, according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), based on the 10 farms they visited, are standard conditions for angora rabbits in China, where around 90% of the world's angora wool is now produced. Certainly there are no laws there to prevent people plucking rabbits, which yields longer hairs, and thus more valuable yarn, and is quicker to do. Topshop, H&M, Boden, Primark and dozens of other retailers have halted orders immediately. And yet there's no denying that, if you own an angora rabbit, it would be inhumane not to remove some its fur. Left alone, the animal becomes too hot, gets covered in thick clumps and tends to lick off any moulting hairs, which accumulate in its stomach. (Whether it was ethical to breed rabbits this way in the first place is another matter.) Indeed, even Peta accepts that – when done on a very small scale – angora production can be ethical. "If you had someone who has a companion angora rabbit who sat on their knee, and they put their fingers through their coat and, as happens, they find the fur gently comes away, then if somebody wanted to collect that and make a pair of gloves that would be entirely different," says Yvonne Taylor, Peta's campaigns manager. Reading this on mobile? Click here to view And such people do exist. Some brush the wool from their pets. For a party trick, some even sit at a spinning wheel with a rabbit on their lap turning it directly into yarn. Those operating commercially use scissors or clippers, and some have posted videos online showing rabbits that are apparently perfectly happy about it. William Sichel and his wife Elizabeth farmed around 100 angora rabbits for 20 years, and he used to give demonstrations to tourists. "The rabbit was unrestrained," Sichel says. "There was no stress, either for me or the rabbit. I could clip a full-grown rabbit of all its wool in 30 minutes using electric clippers, just like you see in dog-grooming parlours." In practice, Peta argues that it is impossible to farm rabbits commercially and be kind to them. A quick look at the maths with Sichel, however, suggests it might be done – just. Each of his rabbits was kept according to British welfare standards and produced around 1kg of wool each year. Mixed with an equal quantity of lambswool, this makes about three or four sweaters, translating into – let's say – 300 sweaters annually from all the animals. Sell each one online for £200 (these are luxury sweaters, after all), and that's an annual revenue of £60,000. "British welfare standards" is the catch, however. As rabbits age they also yield less fur, meaning that the owner must either kill them or also run an angora retirement home. Sichel chose the latter, although killing would have been legal, and little different from conventional meat-eating after all. The rabbits were, however, kept alone in clean wire cages – able to see each other, but not interact (otherwise their fur would get dirty, and they would fight and breed.) In Sichel's view, free-range angora rabbit-keeping would be just about impossible. "I can't think how you could do it," he says. So is ethical angora available or not? That's probably a matter for your conscience. Only buy it if you can't afford it, might be a rule of thumb. Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |