Fur Trade in Canada

On behalf of the more than 1.2 million members of the Humane Society of the U.S., I would like to express my amazement over Mary Williams Walsh’s article, “Canada’s Fur Trade Feels Chill” (Column One, Nov. 6).

To claim that the fur industry is the savior of Canada’s Indians is fallacious. Native people respect the Earth and its animal inhabitants.

By making the killing of animals a commercial venture, as the fur industry has done, the sanctity of life is reduced to a monetary value, a complete reversal of the traditional beliefs of Indians.

The fur industry is doing Canadian Indians a disservice by making them reliant on a market that is steadily declining. The reason for this decline in fur sales is simple. Knowledgeable consumers now have the facts about fur production andno longer sanction the killing of millions of animals each year for luxury fur garments.

The answer to the problems faced by the Canadian Indians is an alternative economy, not a dependence on the whims of an already unstable fur market. What is truly shameless about this situation is that the fur industry is using the Indians’ plight to create a misplaced sympathy to justify its existence in today’s enlightened marketplace.

JOHN W. GRANDY

Vice President

Wildlife and Habitat Protection

Humane Society, Washington, D.C.