East Renfrewshire MP Calls For Queen’s Guard’s Caps to Be Made From Faux Fur
East Renfrewshire MP Calls For Queen’s Guard’s Caps to Be Made From Faux Fur
Glasgow – To encourage cross-party political support for the use of faux fur for the Queen’s Guards caps, Scottish National Party MP for East Renfrewshire Kirsten Oswald has teamed up with PETA to table an Early Day Motion (929) asking that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) end the “unnecessary slaughter of black bears” and switch to faux fur. The motion follows the unveiling of the world’s first faux bear fur – created by PETA and luxury faux furrier ECOPEL – which looks and functions exactly like bearskin.
ECOPEL – which has created faux fur for more than 300 top companies – donated its time and resources to develop the world’s first faux bear fur after the MoD confirmed with PETA that it would be willing to replace the real bearskins if a faux fur was created to match the unique 9.5-centimetre length of bear fur. However, even though the fabric is ready and meets the MoD’s criteria, including for length and being waterproof, the MoD has refused all requests to meet and denied access to its cap makers.
“The world is moving on from the days of gunning down wild animals for their fur and it is time the MoD caught up,” says Oswald.
A Freedom of Information request revealed that in the past seven years alone, the MoD spent more than £1 million of taxpayers’ money on 891 bearskin caps – which are purely ornamental and serve no military purpose. ECOPEL has offered to provide the MoD with faux bear fur free of charge until 2030.
“It is astounding that the Ministry of Defence thinks it is OK to stick to the use of real bearskin for their ceremonial caps when there is a suitable alternative available that could save the taxpayers up to £1 million by 2030,” says Oswald. “This offer from ECOPEL is a chance for them to both save money and do the right thing.”
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – notes that it takes the skin of at least one bear to make a single cap. In Canada, hunters who obtain “tags” are free to bait and kill an allotted number of bears, including with bows and arrows, and then sell their “trophies”, including bear pelts, to fur auction houses. Some bears are shot several times before they die, and some escape only to bleed to death. When mother bears are killed, their cubs are left to starve.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Contact:
Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]
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