Fur Free Friday!

On Friday, November 25th, Big Cat Rescue and Florida Voices for Animals protested Saks and Neiman Marcus to draw attention to the Cruel Fur Industry.

Big Cat Rescue started with the rescue of 56 bobcats and lynx from a fur farm in 1993.  Many cats are still raised and killed for their fur in this country and we need your voice to bring an end to this barbaric practice.  The day after Thanksgiving is nationally known as “Fur Free Friday” and it is the day that we take a public stand, outside our gates, to let people know that Compassion is Always in Fashion.

Scenes from last year's protest:

My feet had no sooner hit the pavement when a cop accosted me and said gruffly, “You can't protest here!” I had worked for weeks to get full color blow up photos of some of the cats we rescued from fur farms on picket signs with the hopes of putting a face on the fur. I had asked a lot of others to join me today in the National Fur Free Friday campaign and locally we were targeting Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus because of their high expectations of holiday fur sales.

I wasn't about to let anyone run me off, but I had to think fast.

I smiled, extended my hand and introduced myself. I pointed to the Fur Farm Survivor on the sign and said that I had been to fur farms and that no decent person could witness such horrors and not do something about it. I figured that since he had swooped down on me so quickly that the fur sellers had warned him something like this might happen, and he was just doing his job, so I gave him the chance to redeem himself. No one wants to see themselves as an ogre (that is what Fur Free Friday is counting on) so I asked him if he may be able to give me a little advice.

As sincerely as I could, I asked, “Where would you suggest that I could legally protest the fur industry, and not put you in the position of having to run me off?” He smiled that, I-like-your-style smile and immediately pointed out all of the places that were out of his jurisdiction and what to do to keep anyone else from trying to send me away. He said “No one can prohibit you from being on the sidewalk as long as you are moving and thus not breaking any loitering ordinances.” Well that was a better place than I had set up anyway, so we were all happy with that arrangement.

Oddly enough, as much as I speak out for animals, I have never actually been a sign- carrying- picketer. It was Florida Voices for Animals who had contacted me and asked if I would join them today. I shudder at the negative image that is often associated with a mob of angry protesters and it is easy to discount the message when you are turned off by the messenger. I had instructed my staff and volunteers that I expected them to act like they were on tour; to be nice, no shouting, avoid looking like a gang and to smile. They did a great job of it too.

I expected to catch a lot of finger flicking and obscenity from the unenlightened motorist that passed, but all day long what I saw were people smiling, waving back, thumbs up, and yelling things like, “We love Big Cat Rescue!” One woman even pulled over and wrote us a $50.00 check right on the spot because she had seen us on T.V. and loved what we do for the cats. By some contrast some of our volunteers were in small groups and heard more negativity, so I wonder if that was because people feel threatened by the larger groups or if perhaps it was because they were closer to the doors of the establishment selling furs? It's hard to say from just one day on the street.

When we have to raise $1,100.00 per day to feed our cats it is hard to justify so many of us spending the day walking and carrying signs but as I did I thought to myself that if even just one person re-thought the idea of buying fur this year, that is 40 lynx who don't have to suffer and die.

It was worth it.

Fur Free Friday is on the Friday after Thanksgiving every year. Next year please take a few hours out of shopping to save a lynx…or forty.

Video About Fur Farms

Write your legislator to ban steel jawed trapsHERE

Click on the photos to see them larger.

The signs on stakes were created by Big Cat Rescue. We would be happy to send you the files so that you can stage your own protest. Kinkos prints poster size, mounts on foam board and laminates for $40.00. The other signs in the photos were created by Florida Voices for Animals.

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