A Queensland cat owner was horrified after finding out the toy she was planning to buy for her cat was made from another animal.
Gold Coast woman Ellie Sursara expected the ‘fat mouse’ she was looking at to be synthetic, but on closer inspection she became ‘suspicious’.
After rescuing her adult cat, Rastis, from a shelter in September, she was keen to give him a happy life, but as an animal lover, she wasn’t about to buy fur from him.
“I felt quite repulsed by that. It’s weird to think you would buy a toy for your cat made from another animal,” Ms Sursara told Yahoo News Australia.
Ms Sursara thinks most people wouldn’t expect ‘grotesque’ fur products to be sold on pet store shelves.
“I think people generally think we’ve evolved beyond fur,” she said.
“I even asked someone at the counter if they knew what it was made of. She smelled it and said, ‘I can’t imagine it could be real.’
“It should have been clearly labeled, and I’m really surprised it’s not.”
Why the Cat Owner Isn’t Okay With Fur
As the packaging did not reveal the materials in the Chinese-made Pet One-branded product, Ms Sursara took to Instagram and privately messaged her Australian distributor, Kong’s.
The company quickly confirmed what they suspected the mouse had been made from rabbit fur.
Ms. Susara immediately responded to Kong, highlighting her concerns about rabbit fur farming in China in general.
While leather products may be a by-product of the meat industry, fur farm animals are frequently raised and slaughtered solely for their skins.
China is the world’s largest supplier of fur, and many animal advocates have concerns about the welfare of the industry in general.
Secret exhibits from other fur farms in China have shown animals thrown, bludgeoned, hung and skinned alive. Yahoo News Australia does not suggest that Kong’s provider is responsible for such practices.
A number of countries including France, Italy, Austria, Croatia, the Netherlands, Slovenia and the United Kingdom have banned fur farming. Last year, Israel became the first country in the world to ban fur sales.
PETA Praises Supplier for Fur Decision
Hoping to get Kong to reconsider her use of fur, Ms. Susara contacted PETA, an animal rights nonprofit, which took up the issue with the company.
Although Kong’s did not respond to a request for comment from Yahoo News Australia, PETA said the brand quickly gave it assurances that all future products would be synthetic.
PETA’s Emily Rice described the company’s “compassionate decision” to stop using it as a “huge victory for all animals”.
“With animal fur toys still on the shelves, we urge consumers to be vigilant and speak up if they suspect fur has been used,” she said.
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