Skating in Skivvies: Nearly Naked ‘Rabbit’ and ‘Fox’ to Take On Cruel Skins Industry

PETA Supporters Will Ask Visitors to Drop Wool, Fur, Angora

For Immediate Release:
March 9, 2015

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

Two nearly naked PETA supporters—a “rabbit” and a “fox”—will take to the ice at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park at Manhattan Square ice rink on Tuesday bearing signs proclaiming, “Be Kind—Wear Vegan.” Their point? To remind visitors to think twice about the true cost of leather, fur, and angora wool clothing and accessories.

Where:           Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park at Manhattan Square, 353 Court St., Rochester

When:             Tuesday, March 10, 12 p.m.

“Most consumers would be appalled if they knew that gentle rabbits, sheep, foxes, and even dogs and cats are bludgeoned and otherwise cruelly killed for their skins,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on caring people to stay warm with faux fur and faux wool—and leave skins on animals this winter.”

Video footage from an exposé of China’s angora industry shows that workers tear chunks of fur from rabbits’ skin as the animals scream in pain. Cows destined to be killed for leather endure painful mutilations, and PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”— released an exposé that revealed a thriving dog-leather industry in China, in which workers club dogs and peel off their skin to make women’s dress gloves and other products that are exported around the world. And in the U.S. and Australia—the source of 90 percent of the world’s merino wool—sheep are cut, kicked, and punched by impatient shearers.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.