Department Store Chain Joins Other Retailers That Shun Pelts

For Immediate Release:
March 17, 2009 

Contact:
Nicole Matthews 757-622-7382 

Plano, Texas -- PETA is sending a vegan chocolate bunny and a thank-you note to J.C. Penney Co. CEO Myron E. Ullman III in response to the department store chain's announcement that it has stopped selling fur items. 

For nearly a decade, PETA has urged J.C. Penney to stop selling fur. The campaign accelerated when an undercover investigation of fur farms in China--one of two countries from which J.C. Penney sourced its fur--revealed that animals killed on fur farms there were often skinned alive. Two years later, when J.C. Penney employees allegedly blacked out lines on some products' tags that revealed that the items contained raccoon dog fur, PETA called on the company to stop intentionally misleading its customers and to adopt a permanent fur-free policy. PETA's lawyers also wrote to J.C. Penney demanding that the company withdraw false claims that it had made about the supposedly humane and legal treatment of animals killed for its fur products.  

Animals trapped for their fur suffer excruciating pain before they are bludgeoned or stomped to death by trappers. Animals raised on fur farms often go insane from their confinement to tiny, filthy cages in all weather extremes and are cruelly killed through electrocution, poisoning, gassing or neck-breaking. An undercover investigation conducted in China, which is now the world's leading fur exporter, revealed that animals, including cats and dogs, are often skinned alive. 

"There's a world of suffering in every bit of fur and fur trim," says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "But with its fur-free pledge, J.C. Penney has saved countless animals from the tremendous suffering of neck-breaking, electrocution, and drowning and has set a compassionate example for other retailers to follow." 

J.C. Penney, which operates more than 1,000 stores nationwide, joins an ever- growing list of retailers that refuse to sell fur, including J. Crew, Polo Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Forever 21, Overstock.com, Wet Seal, Abercrombie & Fitch, Target, and Banana Republic. 

For more information, please visit FurIsDead.com.