The Royal Collection Trust Ends Mohair Use After PETA Appeal

For Immediate Release:

29 January 2019

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

THE ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST ENDS MOHAIR USE AFTER PETA APPEAL

Royal Online Shop Removes Mohair Teddy Bear After PETA Exposé Shows Workers Mutilating and Slowly Killing Crying Goats for the Material

London – Following an appeal from PETA to His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, The Royal Collection Trust has confirmed to PETA that it has removed a teddy bear made with mohair from its online shop, writing, “Royal Collection Trust shops are no longer selling teddy bears or any other items that have been manufactured from mohair. … [W]e will explore alternative sources for future products.”

In its communication with The Royal Collection Trust, PETA shared a first-of-its-kind video exposé of the mohair industry in South Africa, the source of more than 50 per cent of the world’s mohair. The footage shows that shearers – who are paid by volume, not by the hour – worked quickly and carelessly, leaving angora goats with gaping wounds. Workers then roughly stitched the animals up without giving them any pain relief. And unwanted goats died in agonising ways: one worker slowly cut their throats with a dull knife while they were fully conscious and then broke their necks, hacking one animal’s head off. Other animals were hauled to an abattoir, where they were electrically shocked, hung upside down, and slashed across the throat.

“The Royal Collection Trust’s decision to stop selling mohair is a tremendous act of kindness towards gentle goats,” says PETA Director of Corporate Projects Yvonne Taylor. “No children’s toy should be made with the hair of goat kids, who are left bloody and terrified after they’re held down and shorn. PETA urges all shoppers to read labels carefully to ensure that their purchases don’t support cruelty to animals.”

In August 2018, the National Council of SPCAs filed cruelty-to-animals charges against four angora goat farmers based on evidence from the investigation. South Africa’s national police force is investigating the farmers as well as shearers and other farmworkers.

The Royal Collection Trust joins a growing list of hundreds of retailers – including Aquascutum, The White Company, and Marks & Spencer – that have agreed to end the use of mohair in their products.

PETA’s motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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