New Report: Faux Fur Superior to Bearskin; PETA Urges PM to Act
New Report: Faux Fur Superior to Bearskin; PETA Urges PM to Act
London – Armed with a fabric technologist’s seal of approval, PETA has fired off a letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson sharing news that testing now conclusively proves ECOPEL’s faux bear fur performs in a similar way to – or outperforms – the bearskin used for the Queen’s Guard’s caps for all five areas set out by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and urges him to bring faux-fur caps into service.
Independent fabric technologist Atom Cianfarani, who has more than 25 years of experience in material and fabric research and development, assessed the performance of the world’s first faux bear fur, created by ECOPEL, against the MoD’s criteria and concluded that the “ECOPEL [faux fur fabric] equally performed or outdid bearskin in all of the tests”. According to Cianfarani, “[T]he combination of ECOPEL’s fabric along with a waterproof membrane such as Tyvek will produce a fast-drying, lightweight cap that will be more comfortable and less toxic for the wearer while still conveying the historically important image of the Grenadiers.”
“The MoD has always maintained that its support of the slaughter of Canadian black bears would end as soon as a suitable alternative was available. That day has now come,” writes PETA Director of Corporate Projects Yvonne Taylor in her letter to the prime minister. “ECOPEL stands ready to work with [the MoD’s cap makers] to make any desired adjustments to the faux fur. Its offer to supply the MoD with unlimited faux bear fur free of charge until 2030 stands.”
PETA arranged for further tests to be conducted on the faux bear fur after the MoD outlined its five criteria to Parliament in February. The ministry had never shared these requirements with PETA, despite the group’s decades-long commitment to the issue. Earlier tests conducted by an MoD-accredited laboratory confirmed the lined faux fur is 100% waterproof and, when wet, performs in a similar way to real bear fur in water shedding tests. Now, test results show that the faux fur responds in a similar way to real fur in terms of compression and drying rate – in fact, the drying rate of the ECOPEL faux fur is 19% better than that of real fur!
A petition in support of PETA’s campaign is fast approaching the threshold for triggering a debate in Parliament, while a new Populus opinion poll shows that the majority of the British public supports the switch to faux fur for the caps and 75% believe the bearskin hats are a bad use of government funds.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. The letter to the prime minister is available here. 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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