Fur Flies In Royal Controversy

For Immediate Release:
21 October 2002

Contact:
Dawn Carr – 020 7357 9229, ext. 224

London — Dressed as a bear and wearing a sign reading, ‘Save My Skin’, a member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) will collect signatures from Londoners and tourists in front of Buckingham Palace to petition the Queen to stop using pelts from North American black bears to make headpieces for the Grenadier Guards and start having the hats fashioned from luxurious faux fur instead:

Date: Tuesday, 22nd October
Time: 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Place: Buckingham Palace, Changing of the Guard

Erroneous reports in recent years have indicated that, due to public outcry, bears were no longer being killed to make the hats when, in fact, all the headpieces continue to be made of bearskin. It takes the entire hide of one, or even two, bears to make just one Guardsman’s headpiece. The King’s Troop’s headgear is no longer made from beaver fur. Earlier this month, PETA wrote to the Queen’s private secretary offering assistance in finding a faux fur substitute for the Guards’ headpieces and calling on Her Majesty to make amends for wearing a mink coat while visiting Canada.

‘In the U.S. and Canada, entire families of bears-including nursing cubs-are shot dead during cruel hunts’, says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. ‘The Grenadier Guards cannot be perceived as epic symbols of British civilization as long as their regalia comes from the slaughter of innocent animals’.

For more information, please visit www.PETAUK.org. PETA’s letter to the Queen’s private secretary is available upon request.