PETA Gives MoD a '21-Bum Salute'

With their bare backsides – with Union Jacks painted on them – lined up to protest against guards' bearskin caps, wearing little more than fake bearskin caps and holding a banner that reads, "Bare Skin, Not Bear Skins", 21 PETA members performed a "21-bum salute" to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in London. The protesters are calling on the MoD to stop the cruel and needless continued killing of black bears for The Queen's Guards' ceremonial headwear, as the hunting season is about to get underway in Canada.

PETA points out that the MoD are shamefully supporting and funding the fur industry – an industry which is so cruel that fur farming is actually banned in the UK. There is no justification for the MoD to finance this shameful slaughter in another country, where victims are terrorised and slaughtered in order to be fashioned into nothing more than an ornamental cap.

The bears are killed by Canadian hunters, and it can take the entire hide of one adult bear to make just one guard's cap. Some bears killed for the hats are shot several times before they die, and some escape and bleed to death. When mother bears are killed, orphaned cubs who are entirely dependent on their mothers to teach them survival skills are left behind to starve and die.

Nude PETA members give a "21-bum salute".