California will prohibit the production and selling of new animal fur commodities beginning in 2023 after Governor Gavin Newsom finally ratified the Assembly Bill 44 into law last Saturday.
The bill makes the first-ever state-wide ban of animal fur products, which had been heeded for the longest time of many advocates of animal rights.
Newsom said in a statement that the prohibition is “one of the strongest animal rights laws in U.S. history.
Exempted from the ban are second-hand fur items, as well as those utilized by Native American groups for cultural or spiritual purposes. Taxidermy or leather products are also not part of the ban’s scope.
A notable animal rights group, the Humane Society of the United States, was elated of the ban. Kitty Block, the organization’s president, said that the industry of animal fur leads to the death and suffering of over 100 million animals across the globe every year.
Block said that the animals living on fur plant farms are being forced to survive in wire-bottom enclosures or cramped cages. She said that animals are robbed of the opportunity to live in natural situations before they are brutally killed through gassing or electrocution.
