Watching Big Brother, gorilla fur coat seized

The reality TV gameshow Celebrity Big Brother, in which contestants are trapped together in a house, always garners extensive tabloid attention throughout its duration.

The way in which we treat other animals notably surfaced in this year's edition of the show. A few of the housemates discussed the work they had done campaigning against the use of animals for food and clothing and made vegetarian dishes for their fellow contestants. Yet the bigger story in the newspapers was about one contestant's fur coat and it's seizure by police. The contestant claimed the coat to be made of gorilla fur and the clothing provoked dozens of complaints from people to the Hertfordshire Constabulary, the area that the house is situated in being their policing domain, who subsequently seized the item to test its origin. If the fur is from a gorilla, then the owner may be jailed for breaching the Convention on International Trade In Endangered Species (CITES ).

As gorillas qualify as an endangered species, the trading of their flesh or fur is illegal in the many countries signed up to CITES. But as such, with the exception of humans, trading the body parts of those animals who don't belong to a species considered to be of a low population is legal. If the aforementioned coat is discovered to actually be of a species considered by humans to be plentiful in number then the coat will be returned to the owner and in the eyes of the law no wrong has been committed, despite the taking of the life of one or more fur-bearing individuals. It is the life of the individual being killed for the fur that should be of our concern, not the amount of living members of that one's species.

While residing in the Big Brother house, the owner of the coat defended his fur coat collection, replying to an angered fellow contestant that while he liked animals "I like me better". Yet it is hardly a question of who one likes but is a matter of respecting/valuing sentient life, be it the life of a gorilla, human or fur-bearing animal of a relatively well-populated species.

http://speciesism.org/