Berkeley City Council Nets PETA Award for Fur Ban

City Praised for Prohibiting the Sale of Real Animal Fur

For Immediate Release:
April 6, 2017

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

PETA is sending the Berkeley City Council a Compassionate City Award—along with a box of rabbit-shaped vegan chocolates—in honor of a new law that prohibits the sale of fur from rabbits and all fur-bearing animals in the city.

“Berkeley’s new fur ban will prevent many animals from being beaten, electrocuted, and even skinned alive for coats, collars, cuffs, and stupid little pom-poms,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA hopes the city’s progressive example will inspire others across the country to take similar steps to protect animals.”

The Berkeley City Council passed the law last week, after an enthusiastic campaign by the Berkeley Coalition for Animals.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—notes that animals on fur farms spend their entire lives confined to cramped, filthy wire cages before they’re electrocuted, gassed, or poisoned. Others are caught in steel-jaw traps—which slam shut on an animal’s leg, often down to the bone, causing excruciating pain—and will sometimes attempt to chew off their own limbs to escape. If they don’t die from blood loss, infection, or gangrene, trappers shoot, strangle, beat, or stomp them to death.

Numerous top designers and retailers—including Stella McCartney, Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani, and many others—are 100 percent fur-free.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.