Will PETA’s New Exposé Be the End of Angora?
Update (25 November 2025): Victory! goop Drops Angora Following PETA Asia Investigation
Victory! Thanks to more than 33,000 PETA entity members and supporters who urged Gwyneth Paltrow to stop selling angora through her goop brand, the company has removed all angora from its website. This comes just days after PETA Asia released a second investigation into the violent angora wool trade.
More than 425 retailers around the world are angora-free. Read about the investigation below to learn why and then pledge to never buy or wear angora.
Original blog (published 21 November 2025): Will PETA’s New Exposé Be the End of Angora?
Medieval torture has a modern-day sequel: the angora industry. Imagine someone tying you up so tightly you can’t move. They violently shave every inch of your body until your skin bleeds. For rabbits in the angora wool trade, this nightmare is reality – and PETA has the undercover investigation to prove it.
PETA Asia obtained shocking footage showing bloody rabbits frozen with fear from eight angora wool factory farms in China, where most of the world’s angora is sourced. Workers tightly tied the rabbits, hung them by their front legs from the ceiling, and recklessly shaved their hair, leaving rabbits paralysed with terror.
See the footage for yourself!
Rabbits Bleeding and Broken in Filthy Cages
The footage shows that rabbits – naturally clean animals – are forced to live in tiny cages stacked on top of each other in dirty sheds, the perfect breeding ground for deadly diseases. The cages did not protect them from the cold and their bedding was filled with feces. Many rabbits spent their entire lives standing on thin wires that constantly cut into their sensitive feet. Some rabbits were seen lying motionless inside cages, and many rabbits struggled to gasp for air, likely suffering with respiratory infections.
Rabbits are family-oriented animals who naturally live in underground burrows, hopping joyfully, communicating through body language, and forming strong bonds. But rabbits showed signs of agonising mental stress, such as continuously pacing from side to side, biting themselves, and pulling out their hair, likely a reaction of being trapped in these conditions.
Rabbits had open wounds on their bodies, likely from violent shearing or from gnawing at their own skin in distress.
Bloody, Violent Shearing for Angora Wool
Workers pulled rabbits out of the cages by their sensitive ears and threw them into buckets to carry them over to the shearing area. Then, workers tied the rabbits by their front legs from the ceiling and pulled down on their bodies to stretch them out while shaving them.
Most rabbits hate being picked up or handled, so much so that it can lead to panic. So it was no surprise for the eyewitnesses to see rabbits frozen in fear as the workers sheared them. Severe stress can be deadly for rabbits; their sensitive hearts may give out when feeling intense terror.
Workers cut many rabbits during rough shearing, but none were given proper veterinary care for their bleeding wounds. In the angora wool industry, rabbits are shorn every few months until they die from injury, illness, or are slaughtered when the quality of their hair declines. But sometimes, workers continue to use their bodies even after the animals have died. The investigators found a rabbit who had died, and a worker still cut the angora from her lifeless body.
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In China, there are no regulations governing how rabbits are treated in the angora wool industry and no penalties for cruelty. PETA Asia previously exposed angora farms in the country, revealing that many workers ripped the hair right out of live rabbits’ skin as they screamed in pain.
All angora wool – regardless of where it’s from or how its stolen – means a rabbit suffered and died for it. Please, never buy angora wool. Instead, choose soft, animal-free fibers like those made from bamboo, TENCEL, hemp, soybeans, organic cotton, acrylic, viscose, and more.
Please, help rabbits like the ones you’ve just seen in this video who are suffering right now by pledging to never buy or wear angora.
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