Etsy sells murder! Behind the cute trinkets, animal figurines, handmade jewelry and crafts Etsy loves to showcase, there is a darker reality hiding in plain sight.
Etsy profits from the suffering, exploitation, and killing of beautiful wild animals by allowing furriers and trappers to sell fur on its marketplace.
From furriers offloading inventory they can’t sell in stores to trappers selling whole pelts ripped from wild animals, Etsy is actively propping up the dying fur industry. Lynx coats, fox stoles, mink jackets, rabbit pelts, all symbols of extreme cruelty, are sold alongside “handmade” crafts as if they belong in the same space. The amount of suffering behind these items is staggering.
Don’t be fooled by Etsy’s cutesy branding or curated slogans about sustainability and responsibility. We sure aren’t. Etsy claims on its website:
“As a company, we strive to lead with our guiding principles and to help spread ideas of sustainability and responsibility whose impact can reach far beyond our own business.”
That impact does reach far beyond Etsy’s business, but it runs directly counter to sustainability and environmental responsibility. This is all just corporate greenwashing. No amount of clever marketing can hide the fact that selling fur fuels the exploitation of wildlife, environmental destruction, and extreme cruelty. And no amount of words can absolve Etsy from taking part in this. Action is all that matters, and we want a fur-free policy.
Etsy is not a small, cute marketplace. It is a massive, publicly traded corporation. Like most corporations, all they seemingly care about is profit. Ethics be damned. Its executives and board of directors likely only care about pleasing shareholders. Among some of the more disturbing things we’ve seen on Etsy are whole fox pelts with the animals’ faces still intact. These were not “materials.” They were individuals. They were beautiful wild animals who lived, felt fear, and struggled to survive before being ensnared in traps and left to die, or born into a life of misery on a fur farm.
Turning defenseless wild beings into commodities through trapping, confinement, and torture is not environmental stewardship. It is an assault on wildlife and the natural world.
Right now, as you read this, there is a mink pacing in terror inside a filthy wire cage on a fur farm. Somewhere else, a fox is trapped in the wild, its leg crushed in a steel snare, waiting hours, or days, for death to come. Etsy profits from this suffering.
When Etsy sellers show glossy images of fur coats marketed as “fashionable,” “trendy,” or “luxurious,” they hide the truth. They don’t show foxes, minks, and raccoon dogs trembling in cages, waiting to be bludgeoned, gassed, or electrocuted. They don’t show animals skinned, sometimes while still conscious. They don’t show the indiscriminate traps left in forests, where animals are left to starve, dehydrate, or be torn apart by predators. This is not fashion nor should it be a way to make money.
At CAFT, we have focused for years on dismantling the fur industry at its most powerful levels: the luxury market. And we’ve been very successful. More than a dozen luxury designers have dropped fur. Fur has been removed from the world’s most influential fashion magazines. Fur has been banned from major runways. Pelt prices have collapsed. Fur shops are closing worldwide.
And yet, the industry clings to life by sneaking into online marketplaces like Etsy.
Enough is enough.
Our mission has always been clear: to end the fur industry by making it impossible for fur profiteers to operate. This campaign is a call to action. There are many ways to protest and urge Etsy to ban fur. There is likely a business or corporation in your city associated with Etsy via its board of directors. Do your research. Organize locally. Take to the streets. Make noise.
Want to get plugged in, but don’t know how? Email us at [email protected].
I hope everyone associated with Etsy invests in some earplugs, because we foresee loud protests in your future.
Fur is not sustainable nor is it ethical. It involves the torture of small animals to be sold as commodities. Sellers often keep them in cramped conditions for breeding or will trap and kill wild animals to profit off of their flesh. “Small sellers” are not an excuse for animal abuse, it would be horrific for a small business to sell the tortured corpse of a puppy, so it should remain the same for all animals.
Oh shut the fuck up
Dirty-deleting comments, I see. What a bunch of losers. This is such a reach. Why don’t you pay attention to, I don’t know, all the other HEINOUS shit that’s happening in the US right now.
The use of illegal methods of activism – harassment, threats, vandalism – does nothing more than taint the image of law-abiding activists who are attempting to create change through legal protest and lawful demonstration
You guys are such losers. Do you have any idea how tonedeaf it is to be protesting about FUR right now? Given everything else that’s going on in the world?
Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing this
hey will you guys get a fcking life? no one here is wearing fur and your “peaceful” protests are SO tonedeaf and pointless given everything awful that’s going on in the world. i know you have to read these so that you can decline publishing them to the page. WHAT DO YOU WANT ALREADY jesus christ