The Gap is well known for being a fur-free retailer. It has taken a serious stance on animal welfare in the past, but according to animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the store is selling fur through its retailer INTERMIX. PETA slammed the move as false advertising and called on the clothing manufacturer to halt the sale of fur by any of its brands.

“Gap Inc. has used its fur-free policy to lure in kind consumers who otherwise would never have supported a company that subjects animals to beatings, miserable confinement, and live skinning,” Tracy Reiman, PETA executive vice president, said in a statement. “PETA is demanding that the company drop fur from all its brands immediately, for the good of animals and consumers.”

The Gap does have a pretty extensive animal welfare policy according to the company’s website:

We are deeply committed to the ethical sourcing of our product, which includes the humane treatment of animals. We expect all suppliers to make our branded and private label products in an ethical and responsible way. We require suppliers to only use skins, down and feathers that come from animals bred for food. In addition:

We do not use angora or real fur.
We oppose mulesing, and are phasing out the use of mulesed wool.
We prohibit feathers and down plucked from live birds.
We do not allow animal testing on our personal care products.

But PETA said that the Gap brand INTERMIX has been selling fur from rabbits, coyotes, foxes, minks, and Asiatic raccoon dogs. These animals are often killed in a particularly violent manner, according to PETA, “As documented by PETA, eyewitness investigations have revealed that in China—the world’s largest exporter of fur and where INTERMIX may currently obtain much of its fur—rabbits are hung upside down, screaming and kicking, and forced to watch those ahead of them die violently before their own throats are cut.”

Ecouterre reports that PETA currently has an online petition urging retailers like The Gap, Calvin Klein, Zara, and J. Crew to stop any sales of fur products. Thus far, 132,000 people have signed the petition.

According to The Dodo, the Gap has been slammed for this before. “In 2006, the company launched its franchise Piperlime, a chain that offered private-label and branded apparel, jewelry and handbags. Piperlime offers several items that feature real fur. Fox, mink and rabbit are among the furs offered.”

If you’re concerned about the sale of fur, you can make an impact with your dollars. Choose fur-free retailers and don’t buy fur. Once, you understand the pain these animals go through, it becomes more difficult to choose a product that could directly harm them–especially, when it’s so unnecessary. Fake fur looks just as good as real fur, if you can’t seem to part with it.

Related on EcoSalon:

Angora Wool is Finally on the Decline: Fashion Brands Ditching Cruelty

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Image: Mike Mozart

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Animal testing is torture. It’s hard to believe that many household and personal care products are still tested on animals. Some are even tested on household pets that we hold so near and dear.

Nearly 65,000 dogs, most of whom are beagles are subjected to torture at the hands of U.S. laboratories each year. They’re kept in tiny, cold cages where many of them never see the light of day. Research can involve electrical shocks, radiation, burns, surgeries or mutilations. Animal testing is real; a cruelty that still goes on regularly. But a new smartphone app is making boycotting products that cause animal cruelty that much easier.

Few of us would choose to support companies that tested on animals. It’s just that not all products are clearly labeled. But with the Cruelty-Cutter app you can scan the barcode of a product in a store instead of having to check online. Australian model and animal activist Catherine McNeil has become the new face of Cruelty-Cutter. The app was developed by the Beagle Freedom Project.

Scan a product and then share the results with friends on social media. Stay up-to-date on animal welfare issues by joining the app’s Cruelty-Free community. Stand up to animal testing with knowledge and refuse to support companies that still participate is this disgusting practice.

Don’t be fooled by companies that were once cruelty-free. The world of multinational companies means you could be sending your money to animal testers without even knowing it. According to Cruelty-Cutter:

The Body Shop which was once considered a forerunner in working against animal testing is now owned by L’oreal, an experimenter on animals. Likewise, the popular Tom’s of Maine product line is now owned by Colgate-Palmolive. The list continues with Johnson and Johnson which owns Aveeno, Clorox owns Burt’s Bees and Estee Lauder owns Aveda, Origins and MAC Cosmetics. These once cruelty-free brands have become a source of considerable profit for these larger companies.

Download the Cruelty-Cutter app.

Related on EcoSalon

Animal Testing Banned in India’s Cosmetic Products, Household Products Next 

Is Animal Testing About to Disappear in the U.S.?

Animal Cruelty Out of Style: West Hollywood Bans the Sale of Fur

Image: Franklin Heijnen

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The Humane Cosmetics Act, a bill that would make it unlawful in the U.S. to conduct animal testing for cosmetic purposes is gaining momentum.

HR 4148, as the bill is  formally known, was introduced by by Congressman Jim Moran, (D-VA). It is endorsed by The Humane Society of the United States and Humane Society Legislative Fund as well as leading personal care brands including Aubrey Organics, LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics, Jack Black and Biao skincare. And the bill now has backing by a Republican sponsor, too: Michael Grimm (R-NY).

If passed, the bill would “enhance worldwide momentum in ensuring animals are not harmed in the process of creating or manufacturing cosmetics,” the Humane Society said in a statement. Not only would it make it unlawful to test any cosmetics or ingredients on animals, but it would also prohibit the sale and distribution of cosmetics “if the final product or any component was developed or manufactured using animal testing.”

Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The HSUS, said in a statement: “Americans deserve to have access to safe and humane products, and there is no compelling need for animal testing for cosmetics. We thank Congressman Moran for his leadership on this legislation, which will align the U.S. with the global trend moving away from animal testing of cosmetics. We have powerful and reliable alternatives available and it’s time to embrace those new technologies and stop harming animals for unnecessary reasons.”

Ricky Gervais, on behalf of The Humane Society of the United States’ Be Cruelty-Free USA campaign, is also urging the United States to end cosmetics animal testing, “I’m delighted to help The HSUS’ Be Cruelty-Free USA campaign to end the cruel and outdated practice of testing cosmetics on living animals. Rabbits and rodents forced to endure toxic cosmetics testing in U.S. laboratories, have no-one to speak up for them but us. So I urge all Americans to be their voice, support the Humane Cosmetics Act and make the U.S. the next cruelty-free cosmetics zone,” he said in a statement.

The EU, Israel and India have bans on animal testing for cosmetic purposes, and São Paulo, Brazil, recently signed into a law a bill that will prohibit animal testing for cosmetics. The country is also close to voting on a nationwide ban on animal testing. China, known for animal testing, has also recently announced that it will remove any “mandatory” animal testing rules for domestically produced cosmetics.

While the number of beauty brands that create quality products without the use of animal testing is rising, there are still thousands of cosmetic ingredients that are tested on animals. “Animal toxicity tests, which have never been validated by a regulatory body, represent an outdated science of techniques that are not adequate to predict human safety,” according to the Humane Society. “The future of safety testing relies on advanced technologies, including computational and human cell or artificial tissue based models, which are already in use,” notes the Humane Society. “These methods are based on human biology and are more predictive of human reactions than animal tests.” In fact, it’s a pretty good guarantee that if a beauty product has undergone animal testing, it’s probably not the healthiest for your skin or body anyway. It’s certainly no good for the animals.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

Related on EcoSalon

Animal Cruelty Goes Out of Style: West Hollywood Bans the Sale of Fur

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The professionally funny Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest have taken up a serious topic and written an open letter about farm animal abuse.

Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest posted an open letter to Conklin Dairy Farms-the site where barbaric animal abuse was captured on video by a Mercy For Animals investigator.

The footage obtained at the dairy farm located in Plain City, Ohio reveals horrors including workers violently punching calves in the face, beating cows with crowbars, stabbing cows in the legs and stomach with pitchforks, and twisting the tails of cows until the bone snaps.

In the letter, Curtis and Guest explain that their daughter was “overcome with grief that human beings could inflict such cruelty and unconscious hatred at the most benign of creatures and their infants. The shocking images were too much for her father and me but we watched enough to know where it led.”

The couple asks the dairy farm’s owner, Gary Conklin, if he has shown the video to his children and suggests that he attend classes where he is “taught kindness and compassion for all beings.”

“We challenge you to have the courage, as the brave person who filmed this did, to open your doors and your hearts. Become the standard for safety and kindness and actually change – change your mental state and spend the rest of your lives, and the lives of your descendants, trying to make your farm the leader in humane, clean, loving treatment of the very animals you profit from.”

To read the rest of the letter and learn more, check out the full article at Ecorazzi.

Editor’s note: Article by Daelyn Fortney. Originally published by our friends at Ecorazzi. Ecorazzi is the source for breaking green gossip. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Ecorazzi on Twitter, too!

Image: newagecrap

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Is this a meat destined for the dinner tables of the 21st Century? Eaten in parts of Italy, Korea, Madagascar, Spain and China, it’s allegedly tastier than chicken, rabbit or pigeon…and it’s available worldwide in vast quantities. The name of this super-food? Brace yourself. It’s cat.

Midway through an episode of Italian cooking show La Prova del Cuoco, celebrity chef Beppe Bigazzi began waxing lyrical about the joys of a nice big bowl of casseroled cat. Describing the dish as “quite tender” he gave tips on preparation (soak in springwater for 3 days) before predicting “now we’ll get letters from nature lovers”.

No kidding. One white-hot telephone switchboard later, Bigazzi has been indefinitely suspended from the show (despite claiming it was all a prank), and Italy’s Deputy Health Minister is calling for a criminal investigation. Is Bigazzi suitably contrite? Well, not so much. “In the 1930s and 1940s, when I was a boy, people certainly did eat cat in the countryside around Arezzo,” he explains.

Fighting a churning stomach and a rising sense of outrage? Me, too – but there’s an interesting, and valid, question here. In the blossoming world culture of the 21st Century, where will food taboos fit in?

Take cats. Our horror at popping puss in a pot is because for us, cats have crossed that invisible cultural line between wild animals and domestic companions. They’re part of our lives in a way that lifts them out of our food chain. Consequently, while it’s often technically legal to consume cat meat, doing so breaches a number of animal cruelty laws and lands the chef in prison (the challenge facing Bigazzi right now). And that’s mild compared to the public reaction to stories like this.

It’s clearly, obviously wrong to eat cats, right? But a Hindu would say exactly the same thing about beef, as they regard the cow as a sacred animal. The Somali (recently famous for their piracy) don’t eat fish. Even staunchly meat-eating England, Australia and the U.S. have a mild taboo against eating offal. How about escargot, anyone? Wherever you look, we flinch at different things.

Across the world as a whole, “wrong” is anything but obvious. And this allows shock-jock TV chefs to go in search of dishes that will thrill their audiences with ratings-winning revulsion.

Sometimes food taboos make perfect sense, and sometimes they’re no-nos laced with hypocrisy. We’re inconsistent. That’s often the way we roll. But when the world needs feeding, should we be trying to put a lid on our indignation – or is it about time we turned up the heat on the culinary wrongdoers?

Image: avlxyz

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Longtime animal rights advocate Doris Day is calling on us to pay special attention to the treatment of dogs, cats, and birds in our neighborhoods. April is Prevention of Animal Cruelty Month.

In her first post for Larry King’s page on CNN, the actress who lives in Carmel, Calif. says it’s the perfect time to ask for help with her campaign for humane treatment of our four-legged friends.

“You would not believe how much mail I receive and the terrible stories I hear about dogs chained and left for hours, crying all the time; or cats confined to the smallest spaces and left in the cold, or other tales of dogs, cats and birds that are too shocking to tell to humane and sensitive people,” she writes.

Day says many communities have formed effective neighborhood watches which look out for each others’ properties, as well as reporting any inhumane treatment they see to authorities. She adds that pets are more important than property and should be a priority.

“At the very least, animals should have shelter, food, water, protection from the weather and the company of their guardians,” she reminds us. “That’s the absolute minimum. I am asking you to make sure the animals near your home, school and/or workplace are well treated.”

Animal abuse is illegal, so Day suggests we become proactive as we would be with any crimes in our area.

She says if you hear barking and crying, check it out. It you hear the barking and crying repeatedly and think the animal is being abused – look to see what’s going on, and if necessary, report the problem right away.

Doris Day Animal Foundation is a non-profit organization established by the actress to further her goals of caring for the wonderful critters who so enhance our lives.

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