Blood, Sirens, Hanging “Cows”: PETA to Besiege Coach Stores Nationwide on Black Friday
For Immediate Release:
November 26, 2024
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
As Coach stores across the country attempt to coax shoppers to buy its cruel bags, it will have to deal with confrontations on Black Friday as PETA launches the inaugural “Free the Animals Friday,” a nationwide series of vibrant, dramatic, and in your face demonstrations. Armed with sirens, “bloody skinned cow” heads, “bloody” bags that read “Coach: Leather Kills,” and more, PETA supporters and animal advocates from New York to Los Angeles will descend on the retailer’s stores calling on it to stop selling animal- and planet-killing leather.
PETA’s Black Friday campaign sets its sights on “the new fur”—a.k.a. leather—to call attention to the suffering of more than a billion cows and other animals slaughtered every year by the global leather industry and inspire holiday shoppers to choose compassionate vegan options.
“Free the Animals Friday is a wakeup call to anyone who thinks wearing leather is any less barbaric, disgusting, or environmentally devastating than fur,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Coach to stop peddling cruelty and encourages compassionate people everywhere to leave all animals’ body parts out of their wardrobes.”
Cows have friends, hold grudges against other cows, and mourn when a loved one dies or when they’re separated from each other. At slaughterhouses, cows may be skinned and dismembered while they’re still conscious—after they endure castration, tail-docking, and dehorning, often without any painkillers, on farms. A PETA exposé of the world’s largest leather processor, which has been linked to Coach, showed that workers brand calves on the face, beat cows and bulls, and shock them with electric prods. The leather industry also contributes to the climate catastrophe, land devastation, deforestation, pollution, water contamination, and loss of biodiversity.
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 people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
