Burlington Coat Factory Bans Angora Wool After Talks With PETA

Department Store Will No Longer Sell Clothes, Accessories, or Other Items Made With Hair Ripped From Live Rabbits

For Immediate Release:
February 28, 2018

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

A box of bunny-shaped vegan chocolates is on its way from PETA to New Jersey–based Burlington Coat Factory, which pledged to ban angora wool from all of its 600 stores across the country after learning that live rabbits’ fur is ripped out on angora farms. The move is the result of behind-the-scenes discussions with PETA, which also prompted the retailer to go fur-free in November.

“Whether it’s ripping out their hair or peeling off their pelts, Burlington Coat Factory is proving that cruelty to rabbits is never in fashion,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “The future is vegan, and PETA encourages retailers to follow Burlington’s lead and meet the rising demand for stylish, cruelty-free apparel.”

As revealed in a PETA exposé, most rabbits used for angora scream in pain as their fur is torn out. Others are cut or sheared and inevitably wounded by the sharp tools as they struggle desperately to escape. In addition, the angora industry condemns these intelligent, social animals to years of isolation in small, filthy wire cages.

Burlington Coat Factory joins hundreds of other companies—including Anthropologie, ASOS, BCBG Max Azria, Gap Inc., Calvin Klein, and Ralph Lauren—that have committed to not selling angora products after talks with PETA (whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”).

For more information, please visit PETA.org.