On Thursday, Hythe town councillors will consider whether to pay over £1400 for new mayoral robes made from real fur, or a fake fur robe costing hundreds of pounds less.

The real fur robe will be made from muskrat (also known as a musquash) fur, a medium sized semi-aquatic rodent with webbed hind feet and a flat tail.  Native to North America, there are cruelly trapped using barbaric devices just for their fur.  Councils in the UK should not be encouraging this cruelty, given that fur farming and the cruel traps used across America are banned in Britain.

You can read our fact page about the muskrat here.

Please complete the form below, calling on the council to make the right decision and reject real fur robes.

Real fur mayoral robes are completely unnecessary in the 21st Century.

Here is the full text of our letter to the council:

It is with concern that we have seen that Hythe Town Council is considering buying new mayoral robes made from muskrat (or musquash) fur.

You might be interested to know that the United Kingdom has banned the farming of animals for their fur on the grounds of public morality since 2000.  Also, the use of one of the most common traps used to catch animals for their fur has also been banned for many years, due to its cruelty.  There simply is no such thing as ‘humane’ fur.

Most of the muskrat pelts around today come from animals that have been trapped. Trappers commonly use ‘drowning sets’- where traps are set in a way designed to drown and the muskrats and other semi-aquatic mammals like mink and beaver caught in them.  These are set along the water’s edge.

Thomas Eveland’s ‘Jaws of Steel’ states: “the muskrat flounders about on the surface until exhaustion and the weight of the trap overcome it – and then it drowns. … Drowning an animal by clamping a steel trap to its leg is anything but humane..”

Muskrats can take up to five minutes drown in these traps. The fur trade’s use of muskrat fur is truly cruel and it is shameful that such cruelty continues in the 21st Century.

Hythe Town Council would be completely unjustified if it decides to buy a new, real fur, muskrat robe.  Many other councils are refusing to buy new fur mayoral robes, recognising that real fur is both cruel and unnecessary.

We urge the Council, in the strongest possible terms, to refuse the proposal to buy new real fur robes.