PETA Becomes Part Owner of Stein Mart to Push for an End to Fur Sales

Store Must Stop Supporting Cruel Treatment of Rabbits in China, Where There are No Penalties for Abusing Animals on Fur Farms, Says PETA

For Immediate Release:
December 4, 2012

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Jacksonville, Fla. -- PETA has purchased stock in the Stein Mart department store chain in an effort to push the company to end its fur sales. This step means that PETA will be able to attend annual meetings and submit shareholder resolutions, and it plans to do both. The move comes after PETA discovered that Stein Mart was selling apparel made with rabbit fur.

"The fur trade is revoltingly cruel because it steals the skin off animals' backs at the cost of their very lives," says PETA Senior Corporate Liaison David Byer. "By becoming stockholders, we'll get a leg up and be able to take our case directly to the people who own Stein Mart—namely, other shareholders."

In China—where much American-sold rabbit fur originates and where there are no penalties for abusing animals on fur farms—workers pull rabbits out of cages by their ears and stun the screaming animals with electrical devices. Rabbits watch as other animals have their throats cut and their heads and paws cut off with knives before the skin is peeled off their bodies. In other countries, rabbits killed for their fur spend their entire lives in tiny, filthy cages and mired in their own waste. To kill rabbits, fur farmers break their necks or smash their skulls before stringing them up by their legs and slitting their throats.

PETA urges Stein Mart to follow the lead of companies such as Gap Inc., Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, J.Crew, and many others and remove all fur from its shelves immediately.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.