Welcome to Email News: Cats caged and killed for fur

Dear Aaaaaaa,

A cat in China is peacefully sunning herself on a doorstep when a stranger grabs her by the scruff of her neck.

She freezes, terrified, then tries to escape—but she can't. She's shoved into a cramped wire cage on the back of a truck, packed in so tightly with other abducted cats that she can barely breathe.

After what feels like an eternity, the truck stops at a crowded, noisy market and the cages are dropped to the ground. The cats cry out in pain and fear—but that does nothing to keep workers from throwing and kicking the wire cages.

Soon after that, she's roughly yanked out of the cage. Her horrifying ordeal ends with a blow to the head and a knife to the throat before she's strung up and skinned.

No animal should ever experience such suffering. Your gift today is a powerful way to protect them.

This year, countless cats like this one will be abducted from the streets or stolen from their families and sold at live-animal markets in China.

Witnesses have documented that as many as 20 cats are crammed into a single cage—and up to 800 animals are stacked in cages on each truck. The bodies of dogs and cats who don't survive the harrowing journey are left among the living.

For China's unregulated cat- and dog-fur industry, making a few pennies from animals' skin is worth more than their suffering. Workers kill animals as cheaply and callously as possible—often by hanging, strangling, or bludgeoning them. Some animals still show signs of life as their skin and fur is agonizingly ripped and sliced off.

It's not hard to spot coats and trinkets made from cat and dog fur at markets in China, but that's not the only place they're found. Some companies have been known to deliberately mislabel their vile accessories in order to dupe unsuspecting consumers in other countries. If you know anyone who still wears fur, they may very well be wearing the remains of a cat.

By giving just $5 to PETA today, you'll help us do more to expose and stop such grisly abuse.

The only way to keep animals from suffering in the fur trade is to persuade consumers and designers to stop buying fur—and since our very beginning, PETA has been doing just that. We've persuaded most of the biggest names in fashion to ditch fur, backed laws to ban fur farms and fur sales, and inspired millions of consumers to choose clothing that no cat, dog, sheep, or other animal suffered for.

While we've helped usher in an exciting new era of compassionate fashion, we must do more.

We know what's happening. We know where it's happening. We know how to stop it. We just need your support.

Will you give now to help protect cats and other animals?

Thank you for your compassion for all animals.

Kind regards,

Ingrid E. Newkirk
President