Miss Great Britain Bares It All To Save Bears’ Skins

For Immediate Release:
10 March 2003

Contact:
Dawn Carr 020 7357 9229, ext. 224; 0776 857 1678 (mobile)

London – Miss Great Britain, Yana Booth, is proud to represent her country, but she’s not proud of Buckingham Palace’s decision to continue dressing its world-famous Grenadier Guards in real bear fur. That’s why the beauty queen is starring in a new PETA anti-fur ad ‘clad’ only in a plush teddy bear under the headline, ‘Bare skin, not bear skin’, to protest the killing of bears to make the headpieces.

It takes the entire hide of one to two bears to make just one Guardsman’s headpiece. In North America, the bears are shot or trapped in steel-jaw leghold traps, which are illegal in Britain. Thirty per cent of the 20,000 bears killed each year in Canada are mothers, who leave behind orphaned cubs.

‘Help relegate these cruelly made hats to Britain’s history books, where they belong,’ wrote the British beauty queen to the real Queen. ‘Won’t you please assure me and my friends at PETA that you will request the use of a suitable faux fur fabric to keep the Guards looking regal, rather than the skins of bears torn from their forest homes and families and killed?’

Last year, PETA wrote to the Queen offering assistance in finding a faux fur substitute for the Guards’ headpieces and calling on Her Majesty to make amends for wearing a mink coat while visiting Canada.

Ms Booth’s ad and her letter to the Queen are available upon request.