PETA Proposes New Feather-Free Emblem to Help Wales Soar in Six Nations
12th March 2025
PETA Proposes New Feather-Free Emblem to Help Wales Soar in Six Nations
Cardiff – Ahead of Wales’s final Six Nations match against England this Super Saturday, which could see them walk away with the infamous wooden spoon, PETA sent a letter to Welsh Rugby Union CEO Abi Tierney suggesting a simple wardrobe change to help boost the team’s morale for next year’s competition: replace the Prince of Wales’s ostrich feathers emblem with an iconic dragon – to remind everyone that feathers belong only on the birds born with them.
“Tweaking the team’s kit would help send the message that sparing sensitive ostriches and other birds a miserable life and agonising death is a flap-free affair,” says PETA Vice President of Corporate Projects Yvonne Taylor. “PETA encourages the Welsh rugby team to be good sports on and off the pitch by making this small change that could do the world of good for gentle birds.”
In nature, ostriches share parental duties, with the camouflaged mother taking care of the eggs during the daytime and the father, who has black feathers, taking the night shift. In the fashion industry, workers forcibly restrain ostriches as young as 1 year old, electrically stun them, and slit their throats before tearing the feathers from their still-warm bodies. Feathers described as “marabou,” meanwhile, almost always come from turkeys and chickens who endure a short, miserable life in filthy, crowded sheds before being violently killed. Peacocks, pheasants, emus, and other birds fare no better in the feather trade.
PETA notes that this change would be a fitting way for the team to honour athletic ostriches. These birds are the fastest-running birds in the world, can run at speeds of seventy kilometres per hour, and deliver deadly kicks to defend themselves from predators.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Lucy Watson +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]
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