New Global Campaign Says Leave Alpaca, Wool, Leather, Mohair, Cashmere, and Down on Their Original Owners
For Immediate Release:
December 21, 2020
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Chicago – On Tuesday, PETA’s alpaca mascot will be part of a spirited “Animals Are Not Ours to Wear” protest outside Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie stores downtown, where protesters will screen new, gruesome video footage from PETA Asia’s latest investigation of the wool industry—which revealed that shearers punch sheep and leave them bleeding from deep wounds—along with footage shot undercover on the premises of the world’s largest alpaca export company in Peru.
The protest is part of PETA’s new international campaign to persuade all Urban Outfitters, Inc., brands—which include Anthropologie, Free People, and Urban Outfitters—to stop selling wool, alpaca fleece, and all other clothing made from animals’ skin, wool, or feathers. PETA launched the campaign after Anthropologie was implicated in a first-of-its-kind PETA investigation into the alpaca industry revealing that workers on a farm in Peru tied crying alpacas to a rack, pulling their legs so hard that they nearly came out of their sockets, and left them with bloody wounds from rough shearing. The mutilated animals spat and vomited in fear.
“Urban Outfitters brands want to appeal to progressive young people, but they’re missing the mark by selling fleece taken from animals who are beaten, cut up, and killed when their own coats are stolen off their backs,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is holding Urban Outfitters to its pledge of sustainability and ethics by calling on the company to sell only the stylish vegan designs that it already stocks.”
PETA and its affiliates have released dozens of videos revealing abuse to gentle sheep; sensitive goats suffering from bloody, gaping wounds at mohair and cashmere operations; cows burned, electroshocked, beaten, and slaughtered for leather; and ducks and geese whose feathers are yanked out by the fistful for down.
Where: Urban Outfitters, 20 S. State St., Chicago
When: Tuesday, December 22, 12 noon
The protesters will then march to Anthropologie at 111 E. Chicago Ave. for a protest there at 1:30 p.m. and then to Urban Outfitters at 1100 N. State St. for a protest there at 2:30 p.m.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
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