Drop the Down: PETA to Call Gap’s Bluff on Animal Welfare at Shareholder Meeting

For Immediate Release:
May 8, 2023

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

PETA will push Gap Inc. to fulfill its promise of ethical sourcing by removing down from its supply chain at the company’s virtual shareholder meeting tomorrow. The move follows a recent PETA Asia investigation into Vina Prauden—a Vietnamese company that sold down to Gap—that revealed that ducks suffer from gaping and bloody wounds and are stabbed in the neck before their feathers are sold as “responsible” down.

“Consumers are being duped by Gap’s bogus assurances while terrified ducks and geese are stabbed and hacked apart for its down jackets and other clothing,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is urging Gap to help end this cruelty by ditching down and is encouraging shoppers to stick to feather-free fashion.”

PETA has released nine exposés of the down industry, each proving that filth, suffering, and violent deaths are industry norms. At a slaughterhouse that supplied down for Vina Prauden, PETA Asia investigators documented a worker violently grabbing ducks and forcing their legs into shackles before dragging them through an electrified water bath meant to paralyze them—but the ducks’ throats were slit while they were still conscious. The slaughterhouse owner told investigators that her employees never check for signs of consciousness before stabbing ducks in the neck.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—previously purchased stock in Gap Inc. to push the company to ban angora, which it agreed to do. The company later banned mohair, and PETA is calling for down to be next, especially in light of the horrors recently revealed by investigations. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.