Eighty-five percent of the fur industry's skins come from animals who were captive on fur factory farms, where they are crammed into severely crowded, filthy wire cages and later skinned alive.

There are no penalties for people who abuse animals on fur farms in China, which is the world's largest fur exporter, supplying more than half of the finished garments in the United States.

In China, more than 2 million cats and hundreds of thousands of dogs are bludgeoned, hanged, bled to death, and often skinned alive for their fur.

One-third of all fur sold in the U.S. comes from animals killed in steel-jaw traps, which are legal in 43 states. These traps slam shut on an animal's limb, which causes excruciating pain and leaves the animal stuck and starving, sometimes for days. The conibear trap crushes an animal's neck by applying 90 pounds of pressure per square inch, leaving the animal to suffer for another three to eight minutes while he or she slowly suffocates.

We the undersigned believe that killing animals for fur is morally inexcusable. We therefore call upon them to stop selling fur garments immediately.