Zara and Gap finally ban angora as shoppers threaten to boycott
shops over the horrific plight of rabbits plucked alive for their fur
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Gap and Zara join Marks & Spencer, Next and H&M in
banning the fur
Cruel methods at Chinese angora farm revealed by
investigation
Petition protesting about Zara's use of angora attracted
295k signatures
Screaming rabbits plucked using cruel and inhumane
techniques
Major high street chains Gap and Zara have capitulated to mounting pressure and
joined brands such Marks & Spencer, Next and H&M in banning angora fur.
The announcements follow the release of video footage that shows workers in
Chinese factories violently ripping the fur from the bodies of screaming rabbits.
Disgusted consumers called for a boycott of the stores still selling the fibre, while
a petition led by Washington-based nonprofit organisation SumOfUs.org asked
Zara to stop the sale of items made with angora fur. The petition attracted more
than 295,000 signatures.
Factory horror: An angora rabbit is tied up by its feet and its skin stretched as it is
being cut with an electric shear
Spanish clothing company Zara released a statement on December 18 through its
parent company Inditex saying it will stop placing orders for angora fur until it
can be verified that its farms are in compliance with company requirements.
'Inditex will not place any further order with any supplier for products containing
angora wool until each relevant facility has been previously inspected again and
the findings reviewed, following the Inditex Audit protocol,' read the
announcement.
Inditex also owns Massimo Dutti, Bershka and Zara Home
Gap followed suit a day later on December 19, announcing via Twitter that it will
suspend orders of angora while it 'investigates further.'
The companies join e-tailor ASOS, which jettisoned the fluffy fibre on December
15.
A spokesman from the company said: 'ASOS firmly believes it is not acceptable
for animals to suffer in the name of fashion or cosmetics. ASOS is a member of
the Fur Free Alliance of retailers and recognises that the sourcing of angora and
other rabbit hair products causes distress to animals.
'As such, we will remove all ASOS and third party branded product that fails to
meet the policy and no new orders will be raised containing angora or other rabbit
hair.'
Customers who have bought any products containing angora are entitled to a full
refund.
'By pulling all angora products from its international websites and shelves, ASOS
has done the right thing for animals and consumers', says PETA (People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals) UK's Mimi Bekhechi.
'Angora production is cruel, and PETA urges all retailers to follow ASOS's
example and show that cruelty to animals has no place in their stores.'
Angora fibres are prized for their exceptionally fluffy texture. It’s warmer than
wool and the fibre is also exceptionally fine — just 11 microns (11 thousandths of
a millimetre) in diameter — which means angora is softer than cashmere.
It is also far cheaper than the luxury fabric, with angora jumpers on sale in
Topshop for £36 and scarves in John Lewis for just £30.
But an investigation revealed these bargain knits may be coming at an immense
cost to the animals that produce this wool.
Animal rights group PETA released a gut-wrenching exposé into the angora
industry in China, which is responsible for 90 per cent of the world’s supply of
angora wool.
Investigators went to ten different angora farms and witnessed, they say, appalling
abuse of animals at all ten locations. At half of the farms a particularly barbaric
form of live plucking is used to remove the fur.
PETA, which is campaigning for shoppers to boycott angora, is not naming the
farms to protect its sources, but has documented its hard-hitting findings in video
footage. Be warned, neither the still images nor the video make for easy viewing.
Terrified white rabbits, screaming with fear, are stretched prone on wooden
boards and held by the neck while that much-prized soft fur is plucked by hand —
though scalped might be a more appropriate term. Hair is wrenched from the
follicles until only raw, pink skin remains.
In other scenes, the defenceless creatures are tethered with rope by the front and
back legs while they are sheared by men armed with metal scissors, who pay little
attention to the cuts they are inflicting on the animals.
There can be little doubt that in this footage, rabbits are treated in a horrifying
manner.
‘After their fur is yanked out, the gentle, sensitive rabbits are left in shock, able
only to lie motionless inside their tiny, filthy cages,’ says PETA spokesman Ben
Williamson.
Animal cruelty: The angora rabbits are alive throughout the plucking and are kept
for several years, plucked every few months, before their throats are slit
Rather than simply trimming the fur with clippers, as many breeders do, the
factory workers are seen wrenching the fur from the root, causing the rabbits
incredible pain. The reason for this cruelty? Simple economics — and expedience.
Angora has a trade value of £22 to £28 per kilogram, but the longer hair that
comes from plucking, as opposed to shearing, can sell for more than double that.
As for speed, one only needs to watch the footage to discover how quick
removing the hair in this manner is.
Angora breeders in the UK told the Mail that plucking a rabbit without causing
harm takes up to two weeks of gently removing loosened hair, not the minutes it
takes to rip hunks of fur from a terrified animal in the factories visited in China.
Shearing a rabbit takes up to an hour when done with care — but again, the
process recorded on these videos was terrifyingly swift.
This process is repeated every three months for the two to three years of the
animal’s life.
Angoras can live for five years, or even as long as ten years when well looked
after, but farmed rabbits have a much shorter lifespan, which can be as little as
two years.
Yet it is not just the manner in which these animals — which are more commonly
kept as pets in Britain — have their fur harvested that has sparked animal welfare
concerns.
Pictures show forlorn looking rabbits with tattered and partially shaved fur
cowering in tiny cages in half-covered sheds.
Pain and suffering: The terror in the animal's eyes is unmistakeable as a worker
with a Chinese angora trader stretches it out and yanks out its fur
‘The rabbits are kept in tiny filthy cages, surrounded by their own waste,’ says Mr
Williamson. ‘The cages offer little protection from the elements.
They are forced to spend their entire miserable lives standing on the thin cage
wires that constantly cut into their sensitive footpads, never having a chance to
dig, jump or run around.’
Once the rabbit’s health fails, they are of little use to breeders.
Those who survive the brutal conditions in these rabbit farms are killed by having
their necks broken, and are hung upside down and have their throats slit before
their flesh is sold to local markets, PETA says.
There are thought to be more than 50 million rabbits on angora farms in China,
producing more than 4,000 tonnes of fur a year.
Left to recover: After the rabbit had had all its fur yanked out it is thrown into a
cage to regrow its fur in complete solitude
It is by far the world’s biggest producer, followed by Argentina, Chile, the Czech
Republic and Hungary, which produce the bulk of the remaining 10 per cent of the
supply chain.
While plucking of angora rabbits does occur in other countries, the Mail has not
found any reports of the particularly barbaric form witnessed in these Chinese
factories being employed elsewhere.
There is no doubt that China has a woeful record of factory farming and animal
cruelty, particularly when it comes to producing clothes for the fashion industry,
many of which end up on sale on British High Streets.
In 2009, campaigners exposed how down used in jackets and other items was
being ripped from the bodies of live geese by Chinese suppliers.
Two years later it emerged that raccoon dogs were being skinned while still alive
to produce imitation sheepskin boots.
In China, there are no penalties for the abuse of animals on farms and minimal, if
any, standards to regulate their treatment. A new law was drafted in 2009, but has
not been implemented.
The UK once had its own angora industry, but it died out after World War II and
now remains only as a cottage industry, with producers unable to compete with
the cheap angora from eastern countries such as China.
‘We can’t compete with the Chinese, so it’s very much a niche market,’ says
Sarah Paul, who breeds and produces angora on a small scale on her farm in North
Yorkshire and has raised rabbits for the past 30 years.
‘I’m one of the few left, there are no commercial producers in the UK any more.
As an animal, they are lovely and very easy to keep and the fibre is absolutely
gorgeous.’
Her rabbits (all lovingly tended to, nails clipped, and coats combed) mostly live
on the barn floor and are clipped, not plucked, every 14 to 16 weeks. Angora
rabbits regularly moult, which allows breeders to harvest their hair in this manner.
‘That’s the most labour intensive part,’ says the mother-of-four. She says that, far
from screaming and struggling to escape, the rabbits become quite ‘soporific’ as
they are groomed and clipped, a process that can take an hour for each one.
If a rabbit is not clipped, she says, its fur can become matted, ‘almost
imprisoning’ the animal.
Ms Paul, who runs Bigwigs Angora, sells her rabbits’ fibres to independent wool
spinners in small packs of nearly an ounce for £3.
A single angora rabbit, well looked after, may produce about just over 1lb of fur a
year from three to four clippings, which is blended with other fibres to make a
50 per cent angora yarn — enough to make two and a half jumpers.
A single jumper would cost £64 to make with £8 balls of yarn, a far higher price
than the mainstream fashion industry can tolerate with its insistence on large
profit margins. On the British High Street, the Mail found angora products on sale
in every store we visited, most of them displaying labels saying ‘Made in China’.
While this doesn’t necessarily mean the wool was sourced in China, the vast
majority of angora sold in Britain comes from that country.
Of the retailers approached by the Mail — which included John Lewis, Topshop
and H&M — only Marks & Spencer told us where they sourced their angora:
China.
Among the store’s offerings this season are a £39.50 roll-neck jumper, made from
38 per cent angora, and a three-quarter sleeve cardigan in the palest of pinks,
made of 55 per cent angora, for £49.50.
A spokesman said: ‘We put animal welfare at the heart of our business and are
committed to the highest standards in all our supply chains, including angora
wool.’
The store said live plucking did not meet their high welfare standards, while
H&M also condemned the practice and Topshop said only shearing and combing
were acceptable.
‘As a condition of doing business with us, all our suppliers must adhere to our
strict animal welfare policies,’ said the M&S spokesman.
While this may be the case for some stores, this week’s horrific images of rabbits
will surely be enough to give many British shoppers pause for thought when they
stop to stroke the fluffy angora jumpers on offer on our High Streets this winter.
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PUBLISHED: 27 December 2013 – Daily Mail