what's the difference between fur and leather?

More fun to make it swallow a few of your friends first, feed it a scuba tank and then shoot it with an M1 Garand, as you are perched on the antenna of a rapidly sinking Orca

Actually, hogs are often still alive when they are submerged into the tanks of boiling water that soften their bristles for removal. Knives can slip and stun guns don't always function properly. Have you ever researched the methods employed in modern stockyards and slaughterhouses?

I've thought for a while that the difference (as mentioned previously) is that leather is the skin of an animal that's been killed (presumeably) to be used in the food industry, and is a byproduct of that, where as animals that are killed for fur, are killed purely for their fur, and the meat doesn't enter the food chain.
Then a while back I realized that leather goods are worth much more than the meat is, so maybe meat is really just a byproduct of the leather industry

Yes, let's. Because the carcasses of the animals that are used in the garment industry go to---- dog food! cat food! All the food that your little furry (yet carnivorous) friends need and love so much. So, really, its not being wasted at all. Fido deserves lunch as much as the next creature. And maybe some cats or dogs can be persuaded into bizarre inventions such as soy kibble, but my dog and cats much prefer the food they need to digest- meat.

So NOW lets try this again...

As well, I noticed that nobody's picked up the point made earlier about how fun fur and most of the synthetic alternatives to leather are made from non-renewable, non-biodegradable fossil fuels. Yes, there are a few exceptions, but the vast majority comes from that same industry that creates so much pollution and damage to ecologically sensitive biospheres. How is buying synthetics helping? Wildlife is still being killed, habitats are still being destroyed. Yes factory farms cause a great deal of pollution. But so does that pvc coat and that car you drive AND that cellphone and that iPod and that plastic cased computer youre sitting at.
At least those cows arent being poisoned into total extinction.

Yay! A coherent and intelligent response. My problem has been with people who say that they wear leather because they eat steaks. It's not the same industry. It's true that the meat from the leather industry is sold to animal food companies (as is the meat left over from the rabbit fur industry - not so with mink, chinchilla, and certain other exotic fur industries), but I hate that people in head-to-toe leather tell me that fur is gross or immoral. We're both wearing dead animals! It's all gross!

[Edited on Jan 13, 2005 by datsun]

Yep. Its gross.. and so are life and death. Birth is gross (incredible, but bloody and agonizing and downright messy) and so is death (no explanation needed). Decomposition is gross. Its ALL rather unpleasant when you lift up the carpet of civilisation and take a look underneath. Civilization is just a means humans use to deal with the fact that we're all complicated lumps of water, chemicals and tissue, full of strange smells, stranger secretions and primal instincts. Everything living DIES and becomes food for something else, wether on a large or microbial scale. That is how it is.
So this is why I dont have a problem eating meat and wearing leather. I dont even have a problem with the concept of utilising human remains. (Of course, I have to include the ol' 'in a previously agreed upon manner of course' disclaimer here, as if that isnt a given).

We eat and wear dead animals, and in return, become food for animals (insects etc). Simple as that.