Bare-Skinned Activists Demonstrate Against British Bearskin Hats

by Christina 123 | July 19, 2008 at 07:09 am

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The Royal Horseguards Parade, No.1 London tourist attraction, to replace their famed bearskin hats with fake fur? Portuguese animal rights activists have held a nude demonstration outside the British Embassy in Lisbon against the use of fur from the Canadian Black Bear.

By: CHRIS GRAEME

chris@the-resident.com

PORTUGUESE ANIMAL activists demonstrated virtually nude in front of the British Embassy last Friday against the Royal Guard’s use of bear fur in ceremonial hats.

The four activists and their supporters, members of the international animal rights and welfare group Acção Animal, are demanding that Her Majesty the Queen and the British Ministry of Defence stop using real black bear fur in ceremonial hats.

Hugo Evangelista, a spokesman for Acção Animal in Portugal, told The Resident that there was “no need in this day and age to cull 100 endangered black bears a year to decorate purely ceremonial hats that had no military importance or significance today other than for the sake of ceremony and tradition.

“We applied for all the necessary permits from the Civil Authorities (Governo Civil) and the police for the demonstration which passed off peacefully, although we weren’t allowed to enter the barricaded part of the street in front of the embassy,” he said.

Cruel

The four activists were completely nude apart from G-string type thongs and synthetic replica hats which they argue the Royal Guard could use just as well.

“The only beings with the right to wear bear fur are bears. It’s ridiculous and cruel to exploit a magnificent and endangered animal such as this for ceremonial or any other purposes,” said Hugo Evangelista.