I have just two words to say to Karl Lagerfeld’s defence of using fur:

Fashion Dinosaur.

Yep, the prehistoric fashion designer, who has never shied from using the skins of murdered animals in his ‘designs’, has gone down the same road as shamed Nigella Lawson by using the ridiculous “they’d kill us if they could” argument. I very nearly spat my cereal all over my laptop on reading his recent claims that animals should be killed “nicely” if possible, and “I can hardly eat meat because it has to look like something what it was not when it was alive.” Is this guy serious?

Despite Lagerfeld’s pitiful ’starving hunters’ defence, the vast majority of fur these days comes not from hunters as he suggests, but from Chinese fur farms, where no law protects the millions of animals who suffer there. Lagerfeld’s childish refusal to acknowledge the needless suffering behind every piece of fur and listen to public opinion, means that he is being overtaken in the style stakes by an increasing number of designers who believe that cruelty has no place in fashion.

Get with the times, Lagerfeld.

Image: SouthAfricanStreetStyle / CC

The dog. Man’s best friend. Beloved companion. Loyal devotee. So what the hell are we doing performing gruesome experiments like this on them then? In a bizarre Chinese experiment that stinks of Face Off, two dogs were put through surgery to have a quarter-face transplant. But unlike for Cage and Travolta, there were no Hollywood scenes of machismo and happy endings. One of the dogs was killed, and the other looks so pitifully miserable that who knows if he’s even better off alive anyway…

Putting the dogs through experiments like this isn’t exactly groundbreaking stuff. For starters this has already been carried out successfully on human beings. Doing a face transplant on dogs (”Since a dog’s face is close to a human’s, it’s a good reference for future human face transplants” – excuse me while I clean my long flappy ears with my long muzzle) is a long, long, long way from showing it’s safe or effective for humans.

According to The Sun, the chief plastic surgeon at the Fujian Provincial Hospital in Fuzhou “is now hoping to attract rich westerners for face change surgery.” Nice! Isn’t it wonderful how well dogs are treated in China?

So, the buying and selling of ivory is illegal, right? Nope, wrong. It is supposed to be illegal; ’supposed’ being the operative word here. China and Japan have has recently been given the green light to buy up ’stockpiled’ ivory. Stockpiled here meaning ‘died of natural causes’ or (get this) from ‘population management programmes’. Nations signatory to CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), including the UK, voted to allow China and Japan to buy ivory from four Southern African nations and as a result, Chinese and Japanese bidders have now bought no less than over 7 tonnes of stockpiled ivory (I can feel us all taking a big step backwards at this point towards pre-1989 when the trading of ivory was outlawed).

This is surely, by extension, sending the go-ahead message to poachers who will doubtless embark on a fresh slaughtering campaign. It may seem cynical but it doesn’t bode well that China, the central hub of the world’s illegal ivory trade, and where carved ivory is a highly lucrative business, has been allowed to buy up much of this ’stockpiled’ ivory… alarm bells ringing, anyone?

eBay has stated recently (just prior to claims that they were contributing to the trading of endangered animal products) that they have imposed a global ban on the sale of ivory. The ban will kick in by January 2009 and is primarily the result of an investigation that found well over 4,000 illegal ivory listings on EBay. Shocking eh?

It’s hard to imagine not seeing the inherent irony of these ’stockpiles’ of ivory being sold and the proceeds being used for nature conservation. Logically, I’d say there are a few holes in that idea.

Ok, brace yourselves, how about this for an idea – leave the elephants alone, it’s radical, I know, but bear with me. They were born with tusks and have no intention of selling them because they don’t consider themselves a commodity. It doesn’t matter how the resulting ivory from these ’stockpiles’ was obtained – it came from elephants and it is theirs to keep, not to be sold to anyone.

Image: MSN Encarta / CC

Oh Ben & Jerry’s, now you have another reason to consider making your ice-cream with human breast milk. And perhaps other ice-cream and milkshake companies should be thinking along the same lines. In fear of the deadly toxin, melamine, the EU has decided to ban all children’s food products that contain milk from China. Pretty reasonable I’d say, but is the government really that concerned about our children’s health? How about banning all milk products – regardless of what country they come from – and switching Mother Nature’s very own human milk?

Dairy products are a health hazard. Fact. They contain no fibre or complex carbohydrates and are laden with saturated fat and cholesterol. They are contaminated with cow’s blood and pus, and are frequently contaminated with pesticides, hormones and antibiotics. Mmm, and that’s not mention the good ole melamine that so easily found its way into products transported across the whole world.

Dairy products are also linked to allergies, constipation, obesity, heart disease, cancer and other diseases. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America’s leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow’s milk to children, saying it may play a role in the onset of anemia, allergies, and insulin-dependent diabetes and in the long term, can set kids up for obesity and heart disease.

Vote below! Should the EU ban all dairy milk and switch to human breast milk?

Well, I’m not sure if these cats can actually fly but these photos sure do suggest they’re growing wings! The strange phenomenon is taking place in, of all places, China. My guess is the moggies are planning a cunning escape from the Chinese fur trappers who butcher cats and dogs for their fur. “You want my fur do you, hmm? Well, see if you can catch me now! Muahahaha.”

Or something like that. Anyway, read the full story here.

Image: Mike&Mandy / CC

Matt here! Back from the bloggers graveyard while Alexia is away, it’s been almost three months since they let me loose on here and now you’ve got me for a whole 10 days! I can feel the blogosphere swelling with envy already! Right now – down to business:

This August sees the start of the 2008 Olympics – hosted in Beijing, China – but just why are people so animated over it?

Perhaps this will give you some idea and also make you think about the issues that are facing animals in China, that still continue to this day. I don’t want to give too much away so watch for yourself.

Now keep coming back y’hear, I’ve got some exciting stuff planned while the cat is away.Your friendly neighbourhood Matt

p.s. Don’t forget the Morrissey tickets competition

In a bid to clean up their image before the Beijing Olympics this year, restaurants have been slapped with a ban on serving up dog meat Investigating agency Ecostorm has exposed severe cases of animal cruelty through undercover video and photography reporting. Eating dogs and cats in China is a widespread problem but is by no means the only issue that needs addressing - the cat and dog fur industry is something PETA is currently campaigning to end.

But let’s be honest, at the end of the day cats and dogs are no different from the billions of pigs, cows, chickens and fish that are killed for food across the world. See what our friends at PETA Asia-Pacific are doing to help all animals – domesticated, farmed and wild.

Image: Dog Meat Trade / Creative Commons