Animal Advocates Pop Champagne Corks As Fur Farming Is Outlawed

For Immediate Release:
22nd November, 2000

Contact:
Andrew Butler 0181 870 3966

London — The bubbly will flow in the London office of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) this evening when the Fur Farming Prohibition Bill passes into law, making Britain the first country in the world to ban raising animals to skin for their pelts.

PETA’s efforts to pass the Bill have included persuading five Members of Parliament to cram themselves into a tiny wire mesh cage, holding a banner reading “Ban Fur Farming”; releasing a video narrated by top designer Stella McCartney which showed animals on fur farms suffering untreated wounds and slow deaths; and adverts in which famous celebrities like Kim Bassinger appeared nude to declare that they “Would Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur”.

PETA is counting on other European countries to follow Britain’s lead and is already campaigning heavily in Italy, having recently secured Luciano Pavarotti’s signature on a petition there, and in Germany, where top television celebrities and singers are appearing in adverts with their own animals to question the difference between farming dogs and cats and foxes and lynx. The Austrian government has made it so difficult to obtain a fur farming licence that there are no fur farms left in the county, the Netherlands has a partial ban and Italy currently has legislation before its parliament.

“Today, we are celebrating the death of the fur trade in Britain,” says PETA’s UK Representative Andrew Butler. “Despite all the desperate hoopla from this dying trade and all the free fur they’ve given designers, fur sales and production continue to plummet world-wide. This is a great day for animals and a big step toward a more compassionate world.”