‘I Want You To Change’ Ad Takes Aim at Forever 21 Over Shearing Cruelty
PETA Alerts Consumers to Animal Suffering Behind Wool Items
For Immediate Release:
March 12, 2020
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
As part of its campaign to push Forever 21 to stop selling wool, PETA has posted a billboard downtown that shows a sheep urging people to shop vegan. PETA has repeatedly revealed that hitting sheep in the face with metal clippers, smashing their heads into the floor, mutilating them and leaving gaping wounds, and other abusive acts are practices inherent in the global wool industry.
“Consumers deserve to know that Forever 21 is profiting from an industry in which gentle lambs and sheep are beaten, mutilated, terrorized, and even killed for wool,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s ad encourages shoppers to choose stylish vegan knits only—and it ups the pressure on Forever 21 to get with the program and ban wool.”
Just last month, a shearer who was caught on camera punching sheep and beating them in the face with heavy electric clippers during a PETA Asia undercover investigation pleaded guilty to cruelty to animals in Australia, which is a leading exporter of wool to the United States. Video footage reveals that shearers punched frightened sheep, stomped and stood on their heads and necks, and even cut the necks of unwanted sheep, apparently while they were fully conscious. This was the 13th investigation of the global wool industry that PETA and its international affiliates have released. The group has shared its exposés with Forever 21—but the company has refused to take action.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview that fosters violence toward other animals. Recent data show that the production of wool emits extremely high levels of the greenhouse gases that are driving climate change. Hundreds of eco- and animal-friendly vegan knit materials are widely available in place of wool, including organic cotton, Tencel, and hemp.
The billboard is located at 540 N.W. Glisan St. (at the intersection with N.W. Fifth Avenue), less than 1 mile from the Forever 21 store.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
