Holiday shoppers apathetic about protest, but no fur flies

Julie Poppen, Rocky Mountain News

Saturday, November 25, 2006

For the third time, 31-year-old Donnie Hutchinson, of Boulder, joined the anti-fur protest Friday in front of the Neiman Marcus store in Cherry Creek.

This year, he attracted the attention of Black Friday shoppers driving on Speer Boulevard by transforming himself into a tall fox.

"I'm getting lots of positive response," said Hutchinson, who runs a construction company. "People are honking and waving even though I can barely see them through this mesh."

He was among 50 people who joined the protest, now in its 13th year.

Protesters held glossy images of a fox behind mock bars. One woman wore a TV screen on her chest featuring footage of animals in squalid conditions and tiny cages. They handed out pamphlets with more graphic images.

Organizer David Crawford, executive director of Rocky Mountain Animal Defense, said this year the group is focusing on fur trim garments.

"People think somehow that doesn't create as much misery," he said.

Crawford said 40 million animals are killed annually for the fur trade.

"It just takes a little bit of heart," Crawford said. "If people saw fur farms or traps and the blood in the snow, they would choose not to wear fur."

But Neiman Marcus shopper Herb Martini, 54, who lives a few blocks away, said a protest would not affect his shopping habits even though he wasn't out to buy fur on this particular day.

"We're going to purchase a birthday present for me, but it's unlikely to be fur," Martini said, citing a $30 price cap.

A couple from Albuquerque came out of the store pushing a stroller containing a small, shivering Boston terrier named Winston Churchill. The pooch wore a red polo shirt over his own fur, but it apparently wasn't enough to keep warm.

Neither Audrey nor Charles Kraft, Winston's caregivers, were wearing fur, but they aren't anti-fur. "I could care less if people wear fur or not," said Audrey, 43. "They can wear whatever they want."