One of the sadest things I ever saw was on a documentary a couple of years ago called "Kill it, Skin it, Wear it". It showed footage of a fox in China that had been skinned alive and thrown on a pile left to die, the little thing was bearly alive all sinew and veins showing but it looked up into the camera and tried to press its nose up against the lense. It haunts me to this day. It showed many other terrible things but this is the one that tore my heart open.
What really bothered me is how people can be so detatched from an animal with the same feelings and emotions as a pet dog suffering this horrendous cruelty? It is actually quite worryingly psychopathic when you really think about it. Take someone like Jlo, who openly and uncaringly wears real fur. People have critised her for it and told her why she shouldn't wear it, she knows that foxes are skinned alive etc yet she still wears it. It is that detatchment from the very real suffering and pain that 20 different foxes/dogs have had to endure to make that pretty coat that is very disturbing. Possesing the ability to shut your mind off to that is worrying and says something very bad about you as a person. ie: Serious. Emotional. Problems. There has to be some kind of messed up psychopathy with these individuals.
It's like... "I know what I am doing is wrong/cruel/evil.. but I don't care, I don't feel any remorse" This is what disturbs me most about it.
Anyway, don't wear real fur. you know it's wrong deep down inside. Don't be detached,... hear their whimpering cries! because doing so makes you a better, healthier person.
p.s. You can not yet buy a fur coat which has good animal welfare conditions. As the documentary explained. All fur pelts go to one great big fur sorting warehouse, to be sorted by shade. You can never know where your fur comes from.
All the above is aside from the problems when pelts come from endagered animals in the wild too. heavy sigh all this destruction and pain for a flipping coat.