MP Alex Sobel Calls For MoD to Go Fur-Free

MP Alex Sobel Calls For MoD to Go Fur-Free

Leeds – At a special reception hosted by PETA, MPs – including Alex Sobel, Labour MP for Leeds North West – had the opportunity to see and feel the world’s first faux bear fur, a fabric that has been expertly created by luxury faux furrier ECOPEL to replace the bearskins used to make the Queen’s Guard’s caps. The event brought together campaigners and policymakers to call for the high-performing, humane material – which looks and functions just as real bear fur does – to be quick-marched into service.

The reception was sponsored by John Nicolson MP and attended by dozens of other officials, including Lord Goldsmith, Kerry McCarthy MP, Emily Thornberry MP, and Sir Roger Gale MP. Other special guests included PETA supporters, TV presenter Kirsty Gallacher, and Love Island’s Faye Winter.

More photos are available here.

“A viable and humane faux bear fur has been tried and tested and is ready to go – there can be no more excuses,” says PETA Senior Campaigns Manager Kate Werner.

ECOPEL has offered the Ministry of Defence (MoD) an unlimited amount of the faux bear fur free of charge until 2030 – a move that could save taxpayers over £1 million. ECOPEL’s fabric meets all the MoD’s requirements: it matches the exact length of real bear fur, is 100% waterproof, and performs similarly in “water shedding”, drying rate, and compression tests, but the ministry still disingenuously claims that no suitable non-animal alternative is available.

The MoD also claims that bears are killed as part of Canadian government culls, but PETA has found no evidence that any culls of this sort exist in any province or territory of Canada. Hunters obtain permits to bait and kill bears, whose fur is then sold to auction houses. It takes the skin of at least one bear to make a single cap. Some bears are shot several times before they die, and some escape only to bleed to death. When mother bears are killed, their cubs are left to starve.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]

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