“King Charles” Calls Guards’ Fur Caps ‘Unbearable’ in New Video
“King Charles” Calls Guards’ Fur Caps ‘Unbearable’ in New Video
London – Ahead of the coronation on 6 May, PETA has today released a spoof film imagining the king chatting with the queen consort while watching a procession of the King’s Guard. In the video, “His Majesty” is overheard griping about the Ministry of Defence’s use of real bear fur to make the “frightfully un-British” regimental guards’ caps. “Bloody bearskin caps. … They’re so awful, they really are,” he remarks, pointing out that faux fur is “lighter, cheaper, and performs better than bear fur,” and should they be switched, “nobody would know the damn difference!”
“King Charles is a modern monarch who, we imagine, understands that humane faux-fur caps would give a nod to tradition while reflecting the values of today’s Britain,” says PETA Senior Campaigns Manager Kate Werner. “Polls show that the majority of the UK public agrees that taxpayer money should not be used on caps made from the skin of slaughtered bears. It’s time the Ministry of Defence forward-marched towards faux fur.”
It takes the skin of at least one bear to make a single cap. Some bears are shot several times before they die, while others escape only to bleed to death. Over 90% of the UK public opposes wearing fur, and, as “the king” notes in the video, “Mummy gave up fur, so why can’t the guards?”.
The Ministry of Defence long ago promised to replace the use of real bearskin for the caps once a suitable alternative was found, and a recent report from a fabric technologist confirmed that a faux bear fur produced by ECOPEL performed as well as or better than real bear fur in laboratory testing. ECOPEL has even offered to provide an unlimited amount of the faux fur free of charge until 2030, yet Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace has refused to so much as look at the laboratory’s findings, seemingly insisting on clinging to a dated tradition.
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, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]
#