PETA’s Giant ‘Alpaca’ to Lead Protest at Urban Outfitters
New Global Campaign Says Alpaca Fleece, Wool, Leather, Mohair, Cashmere, and Down Should Be Left on Their Original Owners
For Immediate Release:
January 12, 2021
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
Tomorrow, PETA’s “alpaca” mascot will be part of a spirited “Animals Are Not Ours to Wear” protest outside Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie stores downtown, where protesters will screen gruesome new video footage from PETA Asia’s latest investigation into the wool industry—which revealed that shearers punch sheep and leave them bleeding from deep wounds—along with undercover footage from the world’s largest alpaca export company, located in Peru.
When: Wednesday, January 13, 12 noon
The protesters will also demonstrate outside the Anthropologie store located at 917 Grand Ave. in St. Paul at 1:30 p.m.
Where: Urban Outfitters, 3006 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis
The protest is part of PETA’s new international campaign to persuade all Urban Outfitters, Inc., brands—which also include Anthropologie and Free People—to stop selling wool, alpaca fleece, and all other items made from animals’ skin, hair, or feathers. PETA launched the campaign after Anthropologie was implicated in a first-of-its-kind PETA investigation into the alpaca industry revealing that workers on a farm in Peru tied crying alpacas to a rack, pulling their legs so hard that they nearly came out of their sockets, and left them with bloody wounds from rough shearing. The mutilated animals spat and vomited in fear.
“Urban Outfitters brands want to appeal to progressive young people, but they’re missing the mark by selling the fleece of animals who are beaten, cut up, and killed when their own coats are stolen off their backs,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is holding Urban Outfitters to its pledge of sustainability and ethics by calling on the company to sell only the stylish vegan designs that it already stocks.”
PETA and its affiliates have released dozens of videos revealing that gentle sheep are abused for wool; sensitive goats sustain bloody, gaping wounds at mohair and cashmere operations; cows are burned, electroshocked, beaten, and slaughtered for leather; and the feathers of ducks and geese are yanked out by the fistful for down.
The protesters will also demonstrate outside the Anthropologie store located at 917 Grand Ave. in St. Paul at 1:30 p.m.
PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
