Contact:
Dan Shannon 757-622-7382  

Today, PETA fired off letters to Philadelphia Eagles teammates A.J. Feeley, Brian Dawkins, and Freddie Mitchell, chiding them for buying and promoting fur and asking them to donate their furs to PETA. The group also took to task local sportscaster Howard Eskin, who, along with the football players, has been making promotional appearances for a Philadelphia-area furrier. Enclosed with the letters is a video documenting cruelty on fur farms narrated by PETA supporter and locker-room pin-up Pamela Anderson.

"While we’re sure that you must get awfully cold sitting on the bench every Sunday in frigid Philadelphia, we here at PETA were disappointed to hear that you’ve been wearing fur in a local advertising campaign," writes PETA campaign coordinator Dan Shannon in his letter to backup quarterback A.J. Feeley. "If you insist on dressing up like a little old lady, we’ll lend you some old-fashioned pumps and a hairnet."

PETA points out to the athletes that if furriers were football players, they would be penalized for unnecessary roughness. Animals trapped for fur suffer excruciating pain, often for days, before having their chests stomped or necks broken by trappers. Beavers caught in underwater traps struggle frantically before drowning. On fur farms, animals spend their lives in tiny, filthy cages, where they suffer physical and psychological distress before being killed by poisoning, gassing, anal electrocution, or neck-breaking.

PETA encourages people with unwanted fur garments to donate them to the homeless or to disaster victims. For details, call 1-888-FUR-AWAY or visit FurIsDead.com.

PETA’s letter to A.J. Feeley follows. PETA’s letters to Dawkins, Mitchell, and Eskin are available upon request.

January 15, 2004

A.J. Feeley
c/o The Philadelphia Eagles
1 NovaCare Way
Philadelphia, PA 19145

Dear Mr. Feeley,

While we’re sure that you must get awfully cold sitting on the bench every Sunday in frigid Philadelphia, we here at PETA were disappointed to hear that you’ve been wearing fur in a local advertising campaign.

Forgive me if this is news to you, but animals used for fur are either cruelly caught in steel-jaw leghold traps, some of them chewing off their own limbs to try to get back to their offspring, or driven mad from being confined to small, filthy "fur farm" cages. Death finally comes when the animals, frightened out of their wits, are stomped to death in the wild or suffocated or genitally electrocuted or have their necks broken on fur farms. You can learn more at PETA’s Web site FurIsDead.com, and I’m also enclosing PETA’s undercover fur-farm investigation narrated by Pamela Anderson, which contains footage of animals suffering on fur farms and in the wild.

If you insist on dressing up like a little old lady, we’ll lend you some old-fashioned pumps and a hairnet. But seriously, please make your game jersey the only bloody garment you own, and lose the fur.

Once you’ve had a change of heart, please consider donating your fur coat to PETA to help the less fortunate. The homeless and destitute are the only ones who have an excuse to wear fur, so PETA distributes donated furs to them. We have provided fur coats to earthquake victims in Iran and war orphans freezing in Afghanistan, as well as to homeless people in many U.S. cities, including Philadelphia. You can’t bring the animals killed for your fur coat back to life, but you can convert a thoughtless act that caused pain into an act of love for others. We urge you to please do that. The media would react very positively to your change of heart.

I look forward to hearing from you soon. Please contact me at 757-622-7382.

Best,

Dan Shannon
Campaign Coordinator