Ann Taylor Stores
J. Patrick Spainhour, Chairman and CEO
100 Ann Taylor Drive
P.O. BOX 571650
Taylorsville, UT 84157-1650
ph: 800-342-5266; fax: 866-232-9266
email: clientservices@anntaylor.com
web: Contact Customer Service

J. Patrick Spainhour:

I am surprised a name as sophisticated as Ann Taylor sells fur and fur-trim items. After years of fur-free inventory, this is disheartening news for the many consumers who won't purchase the byproducts of animal abuse.

Please note that I cannot in good conscious patronize your stores until a no-fur policy is instated.

Accessories such as your “fur pull through scarf” come from the hundreds of millions of rabbits slaughtered annually for their fur. Most are confined in dingy, waste-soaked cages. Unlike rabbits in the wild, those raised on fur farms spend their entire lives standing inside wire mesh boxes. Many perish from dehydration, starvation or self-mutilation. To preserve their fur, killers break necks and bludgeon skulls before stringing rabbits up by their legs to behead them.

Furriers often justify rabbit furs as “leftovers” from the meat industry. Yet according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations: “There is no hope of supplying quality furs under current rational production conditions for meat rabbits, particularly those slaughtered at 11 weeks.” Rabbits raised for meat are a different, larger breed than those bred for their fur. They live and die miserably, simply to make a fashion statement.

All fur is derived from pain and suffering. Animals on fur farms are not even covered under the Humane Slaughter Act. They are electrocuted through their genitals, neck-popped, injected with pesticides, or asphyxiated with carbon monoxide from unfiltered engine exhaust.

In addition, millions of wild animals are mutilated in steel-jaw leghold traps. If they don't succumb to exposure or starvation, they are clubbed, stomped or suffocated when trappers return hours or days later. At least one of every four animals gnaw their teeth to the jawbone or chew off their feet to escape the trap's excruciating clench.

Please keep me informed about any plans to replace all fur with sophisticated faux alternatives. I will gladly shop Ann Taylor when it no longer supports the violent fur trade.

Thank you,
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