Photos: PETA Protests Against Cruelly Obtained Alpaca Wool With ‘Bloody’ Marks & Spencer Window Display
1 August 2024
Photos: PETA Protests Against Cruelly Obtained Alpaca Wool With ‘Bloody’ Marks & Spencer Window Display
London – Today, PETA activists wheeled three mannequins dressed in “bloodied” faux alpaca wool garments emblazoned with the messages “M&S: Drop Alpaca Wool,” “Wool Hurts,” and “Alpaca Wool Is Bloody Cruel” into the window display of Marks & Spencer’s Victoria Street store. The takeover comes after the retailer overturned its ban on alpaca wool, citing the disingenuously named Responsible Alpaca Standard – an industry certification scheme that does nothing to prevent abuse – as justification for the regressive move.
Video footage and more images are available here.
“Gentle alpacas are cut to ribbons and left crying out in terror and pain for their fleece,” says PETA Vice President of Corporate Projects Yvonne Taylor. “PETA is calling on Marks & Spencer to stop endorsing bogus industry schemes that do nothing to prevent the torment of animals and stick to the luxurious, sustainable vegan materials its customers already love.”
The Responsible Alpaca Standard was created in response to a PETA US undercover investigation that showed workers hitting, kicking, tying down, and mutilating pregnant alpacas who cried out and vomited in fear – practices that the standard does nothing to prevent. Among other shortcomings, it only requires yearly inspections that are announced in advance, rendering them meaningless; does not address slaughterhouses, where much of the cruelty takes place; allows workers to cut alpacas and deny them pain relief; and acknowledges that alpacas vomit and struggle during shearing.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, 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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