Fur

Former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson is in Israel to try her powers of seduction on an unlikely audience - ultra-Orthodox lawmakers. A champion of animal rights, Anderson is hoping to meet religious leaders to persuade them to ban the use of fur in Israel. An anti-fur bill has been put on hold over concerns by ultra-Orthodox leaders that it could affect production of the characteristic fur hats worn by men on holidays and other festive occasions. Anderson, an honorary director of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, arrived in Israel on Sunday.

Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corp. conceded yesterday that it had improperly promoted a Baby Phat down jacket as having faux fur trim when the trim was real fur. Stacy Haigney, general attorney for Burlington Coat Factory, said the company was not trying to deceive customers. "Somebody made a mistake," he said. "That's all that happened here. " The Humane Society of the United States said it faxed a letter to Burlington officials yesterday threatening legal action. It said the jacket, which came in two versions, had labels saying the trim was made of raccoon or coyote fur from China.

A Delaware County woman was changed with insurance fraud after she allegedly claimed Neiman Marcus lost her fur coat, the Attorney General's Office announced Thursday. Samiha Guirguis, 59, of Havertown, was also charged with theft by deception and forgery. According to court documents, in 2005 Guirguis put her $1,000 mink coat in storage at the store's King of Prussia location. When she went to retrieve the fur in 2009, Guirguis said the coat was not hers, the documents say. She presented an altered receipt showing the coat was worth $10,000 and then attempted to claim the loss on her homeowners insurance policy, the documents say. Guirguis was arrested Tuesday and released after posting $5,000 unsecured bail, authorities said.

THE HUMANE Society of the United States issued a statement yesterday revealing that Jay-Z's "Faux Fur" Rocawear Jacket actually contained real raccoon-dog fur. The raccoon dog (a canine with the markings of a raccoon) is indigenous to Asia and its fur is very popular in China, where the dogs are often killed through brutal methods. Interestingly, the HSUS discovered the same fur on P. Diddy's Sean John coat, but when informed that his "fake" fur once barked, Diddy pulled the coat off the market.

A few weeks ago, a tiny San Francisco non-profit started a national goodwill juggernaut. The group, A Matter of Trust, put out a call for human hair and sheared animal fur for use in bio-degradable booms to soak up oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico. For a nation anxiously watching the environmental disaster, the invitation was irresistible. Hair salons and pet groomers began bagging their clippings. Volunteers packaged the stuff and mailed it to warehouses along the coast. "It's such a simple thing to do and it makes you feel good," said Mike Gallagher.

I'd scarcely sat down to read my Sunday paper when someone knocked at my door: a nice young man I'd never seen, his wife or date on the sidewalk behind him. "Is this your ferret? It was trying to get in your - " Said ferret - a foot-long fur piece, little wider than a ruler - is walking past me into my living room, moving with purpose under my green velvet loveseat and out again, heading across the Oriental toward the skirted ottoman. Although I'm thinking rodents and rabies, and my heart rate has increased, I also know that this must be somebody's pet. I pick it up. In that split second, I become the ferret's friend.

The fur coat industry is part of the world of high fashion and high society. The road to the pricey shops selling mink, sable and raccoon furs may as well be paved with gold. But the world of trendy salons pushing haute couture is just the glossy exterior. What lies beneath is far from glamorous. It is a fitting introduction to this other world to drive along the road leading to Tom and Harry Zander's animal pelt warehouse in West Deptford. It is a dirt road, not gold.

"It's communism from the word go," said Tom Zander. "I feel that a way of life is being taken away from me," said George "Andy" Shelton. What was actually taken away from New Jersey residents like Zander and Shelton are their animal traps, specifically their steel-jawed leghold traps. For the first time since white settlers arrived in the state, New Jersey trappers are prohibited from using what they consider their most effective tool. For 15 years, the trappers successfully fought off attempts by animal- protection groups to ban the leghold trap.

Wrapped in the pelts of endangered species, towering in spiked heels and wearing gloves affixed with manicured claws, she barges into a cozy London flat and moves toward a litter of black-and-white spotted pups. She wants them. And she wants them for something that animal-rights activists would certainly not approve: a coat. As she reaches down for the little pooches, one of them, quite understandably, scurries away. The woman, of course, is Glenn Close, hamming in extremis in the role of Cruella DeVil, the grand villainess of Disney's live-action 101 Dalmatians, which opens everywhere on Wednesday.

A few weeks ago, a tiny San Francisco nonprofit started a national goodwill juggernaut. The group, A Matter of Trust, put out a call for human hair and sheared animal fur for use in biodegradable booms to soak up oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico. For a nation anxiously watching the environmental disaster, the invitation was irresistible. Hair salons and pet groomers began bagging their clippings. Volunteers packaged the stuff and mailed it to warehouses along the Gulf Coast.