Thousands of white geese must be plucked to get the “down” that goes into jackets and pillows. The geese must be repeatedly hung upside down, with their legs tied together and wings pinned back as they are put through the painful process of plucking. In the process the birds tear muscles, tendons and break bones as they fight against the “pluckers”.
Synthetic fibers can be used to replace down and is as good as the real thing, and can even be manufactured cheaper and more durable than down, yet too many consumers still demand down. Only consumers can stop the plucking by changing their buying habits and seek more humane alternatives to filling their designer goods with natural down.
Silk is secured by boiling alive billions of silk worms which have wrapped themselves inside a cocoon of silk fibers. To get them out or separate them from the silk, the only way to get these silkworms to budge is to boil them alive.
The majority of wool processed in the U.S. comes from slaughtered lambs. Many consumers would like to believe that the sheep are clipped and shaved or shorn and not slaughtered in the wool gathering process but actually wool is as much a by-product of the sheep meat industry as cattle is to leather.
Wool that comes from outside the U.S. may come from sheep that are shorn. However, once shorn, even these sheep may suffer fly infestation and infection from accidentally
having their tails cut off in the shearing process without the benefit of having painkillers or anesthesia. They may even have large pieces of their flesh cut away from their hindquarters in the sheep shearing process. Before the sheep are shorn they may die from heat exhaustion due to their heavy coats and once they are shorn they may die from exposure to the sun or freezing temperatures.
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCE: ACTION LINE MAGAZINE SPRING 2003