Photos: Simon Pegg Pleads With Ministry of Defence to Go Fur-Free in PETA Windsor Billboard Blitz
20 September 2024
Photos: Simon Pegg Pleads With Ministry of Defence to Go Fur-Free in PETA Windsor Billboard Blitz
Windsor – With a new government in place, PETA is encouraging the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to stop purchasing caps for the King’s Guard that are made from the skins of slaughtered bears. The group has plastered bus shelters around Windsor with appeals that feature Simon Pegg showing off a superior, state-of-the-art faux fur and urging the MoD to make the switch. The ad was shot by renowned photographer Rankin.
A PETA video exposé released earlier this year revealed how bears in Canada – whose fur is used to make the caps – are baited with food, shot with high-powered crossbows, disembowelled, and dismembered by hunters.
The billboards can be found on bus shelters on St Leonard’s Road, SL4 3DG; Victoria Street, SL4 1YE; and Maidenhead Road, SL4 5EH. High-resolution images are available here. Credit: Knightpics Photography.
“Kind Britons want the Kings’ Guard to get bearskin off their heads,” says PETA Senior Campaigns Manager Kate Werner. “With a new government now in post, PETA is hopeful the Ministry of Defence will finally make the switch to a humane and indistinguishable faux bear fur – it’s what the public wants and what bears need.”
Labour officials previously made a commitment to reviewing suitable animal-free alternatives to bearskin by examining contracts and costs and assessing the different options when it came into government – a pledge that PETA will be holding them to.
It takes the skin of at least one bear to make a single cap. According to public records obtained by PETA, the MoD bought 526 bearskin hats between 2017 and July 2024.
Under the previous government, the MoD disingenuously claimed that the bear pelts used for the caps are a byproduct of a “cull” overseen by Canadian authorities. Yet federal and provincial Canadian governments have confirmed that no such culls exist. The Canadian government issues “tags” to hunting enthusiasts, who are then free to bait and kill an allotted number of bears for recreation and sell their skins.
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, X, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Lucy Watson +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]
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