July 2013: Despite being belatedly banned in Switzerland, the fur trade in domestic cat pelts, still exists on the black market for three reasons:
- It is lucrative – a blanket made of up to 12 domestic cat pelts can be worth more than $1,700
- You can still shoot domestic cats if they are more than 200 metres from their home — shock, horror, I never knew that. Is that really the case?
- Some Swiss believe that wearing a domestic cat fur garment can cure rheumatism — more shock horror. This is the sort of thing some Chinese still believe. In China up to 2 million cats per year are killed for their fur. Staggering and awful. The Swiss appear to have adopted the Chinese traditions. There must be an historical connection of some sort; probably ancient trading. It would seem that this disturbing idea that has no basis in fact mainly exists in the older citizens of Switzerland. As they die out so will the demand.
The three bulleted points above pretty much sums up why the fur trade that was banned in 2008 continues on the black market.
Thankfully, it appears that the trade is much reduced since the days before the ban. In an effort to eradicate it altogether the Swiss government have increased the penalty for selling a cat pelt to 20,000 Swiss francs (about $21,700 USD).
However, prosecutions for trading in cat fur are virtually non-existent and therefore enforcement is weak. This is because it is a low level crime despite the high quality of animal welfare law and attitudes in Switzerland. The Swiss really are advanced in respect of animal welfare except for the aberrations referred to above (if they are true).
The “aberration” in the law that allows a person to shoot a cat when straying 200+ metres from home will be debated in Parliament with the intention of removing it. Yes, that would seem to be a good idea.
Source: theverge.com
This interested me:
Stray cat hunting is still legal in Switzerland, thanks to lawmakers’ 105 to 59 decision to reject a proposed ban. Hunting supporters argue that cats endanger birds and lizards, and humane control methods such as sterilization are too costly to implement.
From the Petition Site:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/840/750/942/protest-stray-cat-hunting-in-switzerland/
In some ways I am more surprised by the 200 meter shoot the cat law than the domestic cat pelts. I would be very surprised if that was true but it might be. I think I will do some more work on that myself. If that is not true the whole story begins to lose credibility.
You must be right – I mean I mentioned this to people here from before and naturally just like us they were shocked and hadn’t heard of it. The law about 200m and shooting a cat is another thing. I have a feeling when I mention that on monday morning at work they aren’t even going to believe me. One of them has a cat which he got from the farmer just down the road. I would wager that even the farmer would think it can’t be true that you can shoot a cat which is 200m from any building etc. For the pelts it must as you say be black market I suppose. I would guess that if it’s not villagers in the mountains selling to other villagers for some traditional habitual reason then they are made and sold out of the country and covertly. The thing is that in Switz I just can’t imagine there being a law allowing you to shoot them. Doesn’t seem plausible. Maybe it’s a case of an old law superceeded by a newer law not mentioned?
It would be wonderful if you could fined out what is going on but if it is true it is probably quite secret. The Brits shoot cats with air rifles.