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“Love Island” star Faye Winter is campaigning for a ban on the use of real bear fur in the Queen’s Guard caps.
Winter stars in a new PETA campaign, which urges the public to “Show a Bear How Much You Care.” It features the reality star, 26, posing naked in front of a Union Jack while holding a large teddy bear.
The photo was shot by fashion photographer Ruth Rose and features wording urging the Ministry of Defence to replace bearskin with animal-friendly faux fur.
“It takes the skin of at least one bear to make a single cap for the Queen’s Guard,” Winter said in a statement.
“It makes me so angry that defenceless black bears are still being slaughtered. … [And] nursing mothers also get killed, leaving behind their young cubs. PETA has already developed a faux-fur cap … so there’s no excuse for it not to be used.”
An ethical faux alternative
The red and black uniforms of the Queen’s Guard have remained mostly unchanged since they were first introduced in the 1800s. They continue to feature a tall black hat made from the fur of Canadian black bears.
The hats cost around £650 each and have cost taxpayers around £1 million in the last seven years. The bears are either shot or caught in painful traps and are often left to suffer in agony for days before dying.
Despite repeated calls from animal rights groups and the general public, the government has so far refused to replace the fur with an ethical faux alternative. In 2014, they claimed this was because fake fur caps they’d trialed had become “waterlogged.”
PETA recently developed a vegan alternative in collaboration with luxury faux furrier ECOPEL. It proved to be 100 percent waterproof in a Ministry of Defence copyright test.
A petition in support of PETA’s campaign has garnered more than 86,000 signatures, meaning it’s fast approaching the 100,000 needed to trigger a debate in parliament. Those interested can add their signature here.
