clipped from: www.iht.com

Switzerland likely to outlaw cat fur trade

Had just one of her cats disappeared last October, Isabelle Nydegger would simply have assumed it had lost its way

But

All were gone within the first couple of weeks of the fall hunting season

The cats, Nydegger and others are convinced, were shot by hunters near this central Swiss city and sold to tanners for their fur, which is used in garments and blankets in the last West European nation where such a trade is still legal.

That the first country to outlaw it, Italy, did so only six years ago reflects the long European history with cat fur and how quickly the public has soured on its use in the face of an international campaign to redefine a centuries-old practice borrowed from traditional Chinese medicine.

While it is legal in Switzerland to shoot feral cats as well as domestic ones that stray more than 200 yards from their homes, it is not clear how many cats are hunted every year