‘Dead Ducks’ to Hang Outside H&M in Push for Feather-Free Friday
For Immediate Release:
November 22, 2023
Contact:
Sara Groves 202-483-7382
On the busiest shopping day of the year, passersby will be met with a disturbing sight outside a local H&M store: fake dead ducks hung by their feet on a clothing rack, alongside a flock of PETA supporters who will call out the company’s use of cruelly produced down and urge people to shop only for feather-free products.
When: Friday, November 24, 12 noon
Where: In front of H&M, 100 Newbury St., Boston
A PETA Asia investigation into Vietnamese duck farms and slaughterhouses—which provide so-called “responsible” down to suppliers, including one that listed H&M as a customer—shows ducks suffering from gaping and bloody wounds inside dirty sheds and on lots strewn with feces and being stabbed in the neck while still conscious. Many of the birds continued to move for more than a minute after workers cut their necks and cut off their feet. As a result, H&M has removed the “responsible” down label from its online offerings in the U.S.—indicating that it knows that the designation is a sham—but it continues to sell down.
PETA has released nine exposés of the down industry, each proving that filth, suffering, and violent deaths are industry norms.
“Every down item is stuffed with the pain and suffering of terrified birds who died in agony,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on H&M to help end this cruelty by banning down and is urging holiday shoppers to extend peace on Earth to all animals by sticking to feather-free, vegan materials.”
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.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.
