Photos: PETA Protests at Cambridge Urban Outfitters Over Animal Abuse

Photos: PETA Protests at Cambridge Urban Outfitters Over Animal Abuse

Alpaca, Wool, Leather, Cashmere, Mohair, Down, and Silk Belong to Animals

Cambridge – Today, on its opening day, PETA protested at Cambridge’s new Urban Outfitters store to demand that its owner, Urban Outfitters, Inc – which also owns Anthropologie and Free People – drop alpaca fleece, wool, leather, cashmere, mohair, down, and silk, each a product of extreme violence, cruelty, and fear. Protesters and photogenic “animals” – including a sheep, a cow, a goat, and an alpaca – held graphic signs showing the terrified faces of exploited animals alongside the words “Urban Outfitters: Animals Are Not Clothing”.

Urban Outfitters, Inc, doesn’t sell fur, exotic skins, or angora – and in April of last year, PETA US became a company shareholder in order to push it to adopt additional animal-friendly policies.

“Urban Outfitters brands want to reach progressive young people with their designs – but selling the skin, hair, and feathers of tormented animals will get them nowhere,” says PETA Director Elisa Allen. “Any material that’s taken from an animal is a product of fear, and PETA is calling on Urban Outfitters to be true to its commitment to sustainability and ethical standards by selling only animal-friendly vegan fabrics, which it already stocks.”

PETA and its affiliates have released dozens of videos revealing that workers hit, kick, and mutilate sheep for their wool and alpacas for their fleece during shearing; leave goats with bloody, gaping wounds at mohair and cashmere operations; burn, electroshock, beat, and slaughter cows to make leather; yank out geese’s feathers by the fistful for down; and boil silkworms alive to produce silk.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – opposes speciesism, the human-supremacist worldview that animals are nothing more than commodities. High-resolution images of the protest are available here. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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