And captive breeding is every bit as bad. The fur industry tries to tell us that conditions on their farms are good. These industries see a vast market of newly rich people who have little in the way of the education necessary to see the truth behind the advertisements. The increase in fur wearing in the winter in Chinese cities is all too apparent to even the casual observer. Kyodo Fox, reviled for centuries in Chinese folk tales, now occupies an increasingly important role in lifting China's more backward western provinces out of economic doldrums.
Chinese farmers hope to earn big profits selling fox pelts into the Russian and Chinese markets.
Gansu Province's Dingxi County, one of China's poorest, is ground zero for the burgeoning fox fur industry. Yang Shengsheng, sole proprietor of the 'Dry Area Special Plant and Animal Husbandry Corp.,' is the darling of local officials, who are anxious to stimulate the rural county's economy. But Yang's 3,000 foxes live in conditions that would make any animal rights activist bristle. Kept in cages arranged in rows inside Yang's walled compound, the animals are fully exposed to the summer heat of the near-desert environment. They also appeared underfed and one was seen eating its own feces, an act Yang was at a loss to explain.