Photos: ‘Bloodied’ Edinburgh Woman Protests Bearskin Caps After PETA Exposé

Photos: ‘Bloodied’ Edinburgh Woman Protests Bearskin Caps After PETA Exposé

Edinburgh – Today, a group of PETA supporters – dressed in little more than bear masks and covered in “bloody” arrow wounds – lay sprawled on Union Jack flags as they held a “die-in” near the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) headquarters to protest its support of the slaughter of Canadian black bears for purely ornamental bearskin caps. The action follows a new PETA video exposé revealing how bears are baited with food, shot with crossbows, disembowelled, and dismembered by recreational hunters in Canada. This is the source of the fur used to make the King’s Guard’s caps.

Taking centre stage, Jennifer White, 31, of Edinburgh, sat in the middle of the action holding a sign reading “Shot With Crossbows! 1 Cap = 1 Bear. MoD: Go Fur-Free.”

Images are available here.

The disturbing footage shows hunters shooting the unsuspecting animals with crossbows – a form of hunting that has been illegal in the UK since 1981 under wildlife protection laws. Many bears are shot several times, and some escape and die slowly from blood loss, infection, starvation, or dehydration.

“By using taxpayer funds to buy bearskin caps, the government is creating an incentive for the gruesome slaughter of bears. These caps are a national embarrassment and taint every guard’s uniform with shame,” says PETA Senior Media and Communications Manager Jennifer White. “PETA is urging the MoD to stop endorsing this barbaric practice and to make the switch to a superior, faux fur replacement, which is ready and waiting to be rolled out.”

It takes the skin of at least one bear to make a single cap. According to public records obtained by PETA, the MoD bought 498 bearskin hats between 2017 and 2022 – equating to nearly 500 slaughtered bears – even though PETA first offered the ministry a superior faux- fur produced by luxury faux furrier ECOPEL in 2017 and ECOPEL has committed to supplying an unlimited amount to the ministry for free for 10 years.

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 (formerly Twitter), TikTok, or Instagram.

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