Giving The Fur Back To The Animals
If you have chosen to shop cruelty-free, you may have a few pieces in your closet collecting dust that were acquired before choosing not to wear animals. Of course you could sell the clothes, pass them on as hand-me-downs, or donate them. What if you could use the fur in your closet to help animals? As contradictory as it sounds, your old fur coat could help comfort an orphaned animal.
If you are just now beginning to switch to a cruelty-free lifestyle and want to purge the fur in your closet, or if you simply just have things taking up space in the basement that you didn’t think you could make use of, many wildlife rehabilitators will gladly accept fur donations. The donations are used to console the baby orphaned wildlife and they are typically made into comfort beds. The beds give the animals a sense of familiarity and warmth, which is important for their overall development.
There are several ways to donate old fur to wildlife. Coats for Cubs is an annual fur drive that accepts donations on behalf of rehabilitated animals, and they give the donations to different wildlife rehabilitation centers. Buffalo Exchange, a resale fashion retailer, holds this fur drive and is inviting people to bring fur donations to any store location from January 2nd to Earth Day, which is April 22nd in 2019. Coats for Cubs has collected 15,108 furs since it’s beginning in 2006. Real fur is accepted in any condition, and it definitely makes a difference for the animals being rehabbed. Once Parker the bear at Wet Mountain Wildlife found comfort in a stuffed bear that was put in his den, he was given a fur coat to try out. He found so much comfort in this coat that he carried it around with him until he met a friend.
If you missed this years time frame to donate for Coats for Cubs, don’t worry. There are other fur drives that will happily accept donations for the same cause, including Take Back The Fur. This fur drive is run by the Wildlife Rescue League. If you have fur you would like to donate, be sure to send an email to donate@wildliferescueleague.org. Fur For The Animals has stopped collecting donations as they actually received more donations than their participating wildlife rehabilitation centers needed.
Campaigns like this are extremely important, not only to give comfort to these animals but to show that animals are not ours to wear, and the fur used to make clothing doesn’t belong to us, nor does leather, wool, or any material that comes from animals.
