God Save the Black Bears!

If you have travelled to the UK and had a little tour around London, or have watched a program about the country, you might have seen the "Queen's Guard" standing outside the palace in the bright red and black uniform with a big bearskin hat.

That's right, that big furry hat is made of bearskin, real black bears' skin. It takes as much as the entire hide of one bear to make just one guard's hat. Those black bears are hunted in Canada, and their skins are shipped to the UK. Many of the bears are shot several times before they die, and some escape the hunters and bleed to death. When mother bears are killed, orphaned cubs are left behind to starve. According to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), in the past five years alone, more than £321,000 was spent to the slaughter of black bears for ceremonial hats.

PETA is calling on Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to stop using bear pelts to make headpieces for the five guards regiments and to have the hats fashioned from luxurious faux fur instead.

We strongly believe that, with the human technology now, there's no good reason to keep killing the black bears any more. The faux fur is surely good enough, wouldn't you say? Some of those faux furs are so realistic and beautiful. Look at us Teddy Bears and other animal friends!

You can learn more about this on their website http://www.unbearablecruelty.co.uk/. If you want to do something, you can help these bears by joining their teddy revolution. Just take a picture with your teddy bear with a sign saying, "Your Majesty, teddy and I say leave the bears alone" – or something similar – and use the form on their website (http://www.unbearablecruelty.co.uk/teddy_bears.asp) to send them your pictures. After they gather everyone's pictures, they'll deliver them together to The Queen and ask her to spare bears and stop using real fur for the palace hats.

And there's some more. This is the option only if you can bear. You can actually send your Teddy Bear to PETA. PETA want you to send your teddy bears to them so that they can send those teddies to The Queen along with your plea asking her to stop allowing real bears to be killed for her guards' caps. Unfortunately, if you choose this option, once your teddy is bound for Buckingham Palace, they wouldn't be able to come back to you.

This is the address if you decide to send your Teddy Bear to PETA.
PETA Europe Ltd
PO Box 36668
London
SE1 1WA
UK