PETA Asks H&M To Keep Its Promise That No Animals Should Be Harmed By Its Down Manufacturing Process, Hold Microscope To Supply Chain, Keep Responsible Down Standard (RDS) Providers Accountable

Staten Islander News contacted PETA regarding this article, to inquire whether down feathers can possibly be obtained from ducks and geese without causing suffering.  While it is possible to harvest the feathers without slaughter, it cannot be done without suffering. Even if manufacturers do practice live-plucking, this is, in itself, still a barbaric and pain-causing process, often leading to death due to lack of care for the mutilated ducks and geese. See below for the response from PETA regarding the down and wool industries, and how inhumane they both are:

“The alternative to down procurement post-slaughter is live plucking. PETA and PETA Asia set out to visit farms across China (where 80 percent of the world’s down and feathers used for items like jackets, sleeping bags, and bedding come from) and see firsthand the various ways in which those feathers are obtained. Investigators saw workers rip geese’s feathers out—leaving open, bloody wounds—while the birds were fully conscious. Many struggled and cried out in terror and pain as their feathers were torn out of their skin, while others just froze, paralyzed with fear.

The only way to obtain feathers without killing the birds first is to pluck the feathers out of the living birds’ skin, which is an inherently cruel and painful process—imagine tearing a human’s hair out of their scalp while they’re still alive.

But PETA Asia’s latest investigations into the down industry reveals once again that all down is the product of extreme cruelty and that the misleading Responsible Down Standard that many in the industry hide behind is a total sham. A look inside so-called “responsible” slaughterhouses that supplied companies around the world—including H&M—shows workers stabbing the animals’ necks with knives while the birds continue to shriek and struggle.

Most birds killed for their down experience intensive confinement on factory farms, where they’re denied fresh air, clean water, and room to move freely. At the end of their miserable lives, they’re loaded onto trucks bound for the slaughterhouse, where many are improperly stunned, leaving them conscious and able to feel pain when their throats are cut and they’re plunged into scalding-hot defeathering tanks. All down comes from birds who are eventually killed in a violent way. 

Many people believe, mistakenly, that harvesting sheep from wool is not an inherently cruel practice, and it does not result in extreme suffering or death for the sheep.  However, the wool industry is incredibly cruel.

Fourteen exposés by PETA entities, encompassing 117 wool operations on four continents, have caught workers beating, stomping on, kicking, mutilating, and throwing terrified sheep. Shearers are typically paid by the volume, not the hour, which leads to fast and sloppy shearing that leaves sheep with deep, bloody wounds. Those who survive multiple rounds of shearing are slaughtered when their wool production slows.

The only certain way to be sure that animals weren’t harmed for our clothing is to shop vegan, and PETA is calling on H&M to switch entirely to the vegan materials it already sells—starting by going down-free”

Will H&M Ban Down Following PETA’s Shareholder Resolution?

New York — After a recent PETA Asia investigation into Vina Prauden—a Vietnamese company that previously supplied down to H&M—revealed that ducks’ throats were slit while they were still conscious and that the birds were seen moving for at least one minute afterward, PETA submitted a shareholder resolution today to H&M Group urging the board of directors to prepare a report on the slaughter methods used to procure down for the company.

The resolution points out that H&M depends on Textile Exchange’s demonstrably ineffective Responsible Down Standard (RDS) to make claims about animal welfare. But recently, it began removing the RDS label from its online offerings, indicating that it knows the RDS is a sham. H&M provides no information about the farms and slaughterhouses that supply down for its products—completely debunking its own misleading statements that it has prioritized both traceability and transparency across supply chains.

“H&M states that no animals should be harmed for its clothes, so it should jump at PETA’s request that it hold a microscope up to its supply chain to ensure just that,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Every down item represents the pain and suffering of terrified birds, and deceptive labels and lip service only serve to absolve companies and dupe well-meaning consumers.”

At a slaughterhouse that provided down for Vina Prauden, PETA Asia investigators documented a worker violently grabbing ducks and forcing their legs into shackles before dragging them through an electrified water bath meant to paralyze them—but the ducks’ throats were slit while they were still conscious. The slaughterhouse owner told investigators that her employees never check for signs of consciousness before stabbing ducks in the neck and slaughtering them.

Previous PETA exposés have repeatedly revealed workers painfully live-plucking ducks and geese, leaving them with bloody, gaping wounds, including on farms connected to purportedly “responsible” companies. On an RDS-certified farm in Russia, PETA Asia documented that terrified geese shrieked as workers stretched their necks out across a stump and then repeatedly hacked at them with a dull axe—as many as seven times—before decapitation was complete.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

Ducks left to die on an RDS down farm

The full text of PETA’s resolution is below:

Advertisement

RESOLVED
Given the egregious cruelty to birds and violations of so-called “responsible” animal welfare standards and national laws that are endemic to the down industry, the Board is strongly encouraged to prepare a report on the slaughter methods used to procure down for H&M.

SUPPORTING STATEMENT
H&M’s animal welfare policy states, “Animal welfare is important to us, and no animals should be harmed in the making of our products.” In an effort to improve its own accountability, H&M claims that it has prioritized both traceability and transparency across supply chains. However, H&M provides no transparency regarding the farms and slaughterhouses that supply down for its products and depends on the Textile Exchange’s demonstrably ineffective Responsible Down Standard (RDS) to make claims about the humane treatment of birds.

PETA entities have released nine exposés of the down industry. In 2022, exposés of facilities in Russia, Vietnam, and Poland—three of the world’s top down exporters—revealed that atrocious cruelty, gross lapses in oversight, and multiple violations of both national laws and so-called “responsible” standards, which H&M boasts on product tags, are rampant in the down industry.

On an RDS-certified farm in Russia, terrified geese shrieked as workers stretched their necks out across a stump and then repeatedly hacked at them with a dull axe—as many as seven times—before decapitation was complete.

At slaughterhouses in Vietnam that are part of the supply chain of RDS-certified down suppliers, faulty stunning baths meant that birds were still conscious when a worker plunged a knife through their necks and left them hanging to bleed out. No attempt was made to stun birds killed in homes that doubled as slaughterhouses—in one, a worker pierced ducks’ necks with a knife and sliced off their legs as they continued to struggle.

In Poland, inadequate stunning caused immense and prolonged suffering to ducks who were left hanging upside down from leg shackles, some flapping wildly as they slowly bled to death after being slashed across the throat.

This cruelty apparently violates RDS requirements, the European Convention for the Protection of Animals for Slaughter, Vietnam’s Law on Animal Husbandry 2018, and Poland’s Animal Protection Act 1997.

Given the failures in compliance with animal welfare laws across the down industry, it is reasonable for shareholders to demand that H&M provide a report on the slaughter methods used to procure its down in order to ensure that its sourcing complies with all relevant animal welfare laws and standards.

Accordingly, we call on all shareholders to support this financially and ethically responsible resolution.

Banner Image: Ducks with feathers torn out during PETA’s investigation. Image Credit – PETA

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the largest animal rights organization in the world, and PETA entities have more than 9 million members and supporters globally. PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview, and focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: in laboratories, in the food industry, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment business. We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of rodents, birds, and other animals who are often considered “pests” as well as cruelty to domesticated animals. PETA works through public education, investigative newsgathering and reporting, research, animal rescue, legislation, special events, celebrity involvement, and protest campaigns.