Bears Lured With Cookies, Shot With Crossbows

Baiting bears is banned in parts of North America and condemned by conservation groups as being cruel and “unsportsmanlike”, but this new disturbing exposé shows hunters luring bears close with buckets of sweet or greasy food before shooting the unsuspecting animals with crossbows – a form of hunting that has been illegal in the UK since 1981 under wildlife protection laws.

A Slow, Painful Death From Blood Loss

As the investigator witnessed, bears who are shot don’t always die outright. They may flee and endure a slow and hideously painful death from infection or blood loss – sometimes hunters only find them hours later, if they even bother to follow the bloody trail. During spring hunts, nursing mothers may be among those killed, leaving behind cubs who are unable to survive without them and starve.

Fur Sold to the Ministry of Defence

Once hunters have slaughtered the bears, they may keep parts of their bodies, such as the head or claws, as trophies they imagine to be “macho” and sell or auction off the fur. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) capmakers buy the fur of hunted black bears and use it to make the headgear worn by the King’s Guard.

PETA provided the government with the footage and called on the MoD to stop supporting this barbaric industry, which is entirely at odds with UK public opinion – 95% of British people say they reject fur. The Labour party pledged to give “the biggest boost to animal welfare in a generation” – and yet orders of bearskin caps more than quadrupled in 2025. This cannot stand.  

Bad for the Public, Too 

Each cap costs the tax payer £2,361, rising by 8% in a year. Because it takes the skin of one bear to make a single cap, each cap costs a beautiful bear his or her life.  

A Populus opinion poll revealed that 75% of Brits think the bearskin caps are a bad use of taxpayers’ money, and the majority want action taken to replace bearskins with faux fur. The Labour Party must take note!  

The Origins of the Bearskin Caps

The MoD has frequently and entirely disingenuously claimed that the bear pelts are a byproduct of a “cull” overseen by Canadian authorities. Yet federal and provincial Canadian governments have confirmed that no such culls exist. The Canadian government issues “tags” to hunting enthusiasts – such as those seen in the footage – who are then free to bait and kill an allotted number of bears and sell their skin. It is a blood sport effectively subsidised by the MoD.

In a desperate attempt to defend the indefensible, the MoD has now aligned itself with Furmark, a misleading certification scheme set up by the commercial fur industry that exists solely to protect the interests of fur farmers and hunters and to promote the (rapidly declining) use of fur in fashion. Even former British Fur Trade Association CEO Mike Moser called Furmark a “meaningless” scheme that seeks to “sugar-coat the truth behind this … cruel trade”.

Faux Bear Fur Is Available Right Now

With all the expertise and resources at the MoD’s disposal, and the high-quality faux fur available on the market today, there is no excuse to continue using bear fur on these caps which are purely ornamental.  

PETA offered a superior state-of-the-art faux fur produced by luxury faux furrier ECOPEL to the MoD in 2017 and again in 2023, and ECOPEL has committed to supplying the MoD with an unlimited amount for free until 2030. Despite this, the MoD continues to use real bear fur for the caps, increasing orders by 336% in 2025. Luke Pollard, the minister responsible, must urgently instruct the cap-makers to develop a modern faux fur cap.   

Stephen Fry: Fur Caps Bring Dishonour to the UK

The UK government is essentially supporting bait-and-kill hunting of bears.

“Britain has always prided itself on being ‘sporting’, but these bears – lured with cookies to the hunters’ hiding place – stand no chance of survival. Tradition is never an excuse for cruelty, which is why I’m joining the call for the Ministry of Defence to stop using the fur of slaughtered wildlife and make the switch to humane faux fur for the King’s Guard’s caps. To do otherwise would be unconscionable – and un-British.”

– Stephen Fry

What You Can Do

It’s way past time to modernise this iconic symbol of the UK by switching to a fabulous faux fur. With all of the resources and technical expertise at the MoD’s disposal, it surely cannot be bested by a cap and must act now! 

Urge your MP to support the switch to faux fur: 

Email Your MP

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