As a result of PETA’s campaigns, many clothing companies have taken steps to make their products more animal-friendly.

In 2008, PETA campaigns and negotiations prompted numerous companies to pledge to go fur-free, including Liz Claiborne, DirectBuy, AC Moore, Nike, Cole Haan, Blue Bee Jeans, Sears, Zappos.com, and Juicy Couture. They joined dozens of other companies that—thanks to PETA pressure—are now fur-free, including Polo Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, and Vivienne Westwood. Designer Donna Karan, PETA’s number one fur target for the past two years, announced that she has dropped fur from her collections. These victories will spare countless animals from being trapped, electrocuted, or skinned alive for their fur.

New evidence documenting animal abuse in the fur industry was revealed in an undercover investigation of rabbit farms in China, the leading fur exporter. A PETA Asia-Pacific investigator found that rabbits were confined for months to cages so small that they couldn’t even take two steps in any direction. During slaughter, rabbits were electrically shocked, were hung by one leg in metal shackles, and had their throats cut as the animals next in line watched in terror. The video footage is powerful ammunition for our campaign, launched in 2008, against fashion giant Giorgio Armani, who uses rabbit fur in his designs.

PETA’s battle against the cruelty of the international wool trade made great strides in 2008. More than 60 international fashion retailers— including Gap Inc., H&M, Express LLC, Dress Barn, Lost Arrow Inc. (Patagonia), HUGO BOSS, Perry Ellis, and Adidas— agreed to move away from or stop purchasing mulesed wool. In “mulesing,” Australian wool farmers use shears to cut huge chunks of skin and flesh from lambs’ backsides, without the use of any painkillers. Mulesing is done in an attempt to reduce maggot infestation—despite the availability of humane alternatives.

A new PETA undercover investigation helped highlight the suffering that goes into the bearskin hats worn by The Queen’s Guards at Buckingham Palace.

We documented “bait and shoot” hunters as they lured Canadian black bears to barrels of food and then shot them. The footage showed a hunter shooting a mother bear, leaving her cub with little chance of surviving all alone. Wounded bears who escape often die slowly in pain. After viewing the investigation footage, the U.K. Ministry of Defence called synthetics manufacturers to a meeting and agreed to fund research into a replacement material for the caps.

PETA created a new video “Whose Skin Are You In?” to expose the cruelty of the fur and leather industries. It has been viewed more than 162,000 times on YouTube.com.

Through attention-grabbing ads, many celebrities helped us urge people to go fur-free, including chart-topping girl-group Danity Kane, reality TV star Khloe Kardashian, and Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard. Amanda even held a news conference in our behalf on the opening day of the Olympics in Beijing!

“PETA has gazumped us. And we have to supply what our customers want, which means we must stop mulesing.”

—Alan Pitcher, Australian wool producer, in The Weekly Times, Australia, August 20, 2008