World’s Leading Faux Furrier Slams MoD’s Faux Fur Lies in Appeal to Boris Johnson, Demands Retraction
World’s Leading Faux Furrier Slams MoD’s Faux Fur Lies in Appeal to Boris Johnson, Demands Retraction
London – Following a leaked e-mail to a constituent in which Boris Johnson repeated inaccurate and disparaging claims first peddled by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) about the faux fur that could replace the bearskin used for the Queen’s Guard’s caps, the CEO of ECOPEL, the luxury company that created the faux bear fur, has fired off a letter to the prime minister demanding that he “set the record straight and ask that a retraction be issued”.
As CEO Christopher Sarfati explains, 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 to 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.
Contrary to the prime minister’s false statement that “the Ministry of Defence recently conducted tests on a fake fur fabric”, not a single MoD official has even seen ECOPEL’s faux bear fur. PETA – a charity – had to hire a fabric technologist and pay for an MoD-copyrighted test to be conducted on the faux fur at an accredited laboratory used by the ministry, which confirmed that ECOPEL’s lined faux fur is 100% waterproof. Nor did the faux fur show “unacceptable rates of water shedding” or perform “poorly on visual assessment”, as Johnson claims. Images from the test clearly show that the faux fur sheds water in much the same way as real bear fur. The faux fur and bear fur are also virtually identical to the naked eye.
“With a humane alternative to bear fur now available – and with [ECOPEL’s] offer to supply free and unlimited faux bear fur to the MoD until 2030 still on the table – it would be absurd for a country that is world-renowned for its compassion towards animals to continue spending taxpayers’ money on the shameful pursuits of cowardly hunters, who slay bears with bullets and bows and arrows for these ornamental caps,” Sarfati concludes. “I hope you agree.”
PETA 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 on 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.
Last month, TV presenter Alesha Dixon joined PETA in launching a parliamentary petition to replace the bearskin caps with faux-fur versions. If the petition reaches 100,000 signatures, it will trigger a parliamentary debate on the issue.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA’s website or follow the group on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Contact:
Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]
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