Animal rights groups object to Buckingham Palace guard's distinctive bearskin caps

ENT

Animal rights groups object to Buckingham Palace guard's distinctive bearskin caps

2024-09-13 11:28 Last Updated At：11:41

LONDON (AP) — An animal rights group trying to get real fur out of the bearskin caps worn by King's Guards at Buckingham Palace took aim Thursday at the cost of the ceremonial garb.

The price of the caps soared 30% in a year to more than 2,000 pounds ($2,600) apiece for the hats made of black bear fur, the Ministry of Defense said in response to a freedom of information request by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

“Stop wasting taxpayer pounds on caps made from slaughtered wildlife and switch to faux fur today,” the group said in a statement.

A luxury fake fur maker has offered to supply the army with free faux bear fur for 10 years, PETA said.

The military said it was open to exploring alternatives if they pass muster in durability, water protection and appearance. But "no alternative has met all those criteria to date,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement.

The distinctive tall black hats, worn by guards in bright scarlet tunics, are seen by millions who watch the regular changing of the guard ceremony at the palace. They also appear at other royal events including the annual Trooping the Color ceremony honoring the monarch’s birthday in June.

The cost of the caps rose from 1,560 pounds ($2,035) each in 2022 to 2,040 pounds ($2,660) in 2023, the ministry said. More than 1 million pounds ($1.3 million) was spent on them in the past decade.

The price went up because of a contract change for fur that comes from bears killed in licensed hunts in Canada, the military said. Each cap requires one bear pelt, PETA said.

PETA, hich has been pushing for more than two decades to scrap the fur hats, said each cap requires one bear pelt. The group claimed that the defense department is propping up the “cruel” Canadian bear-hunting industry.

The ministry denied that charge and said if it stopped buying the pelts, it would not reduce the numbers of bears being killed.

Parliament debated the issue in July 2022 after an online petition with more than 100,000 signatures called for using fake fur in the caps.

“This hunting involves the violent killing of bears, with many bears being shot several times,” Martyn Day, then a Scottish National Party member of Parliament, said at the time. “It seems undeniable, therefore, that by continuing to purchase hats made from the fur of black bears the MOD is funding the suffering of bears in Canada by making the baiting and killing of those animals and the sale of their pelts a profitable pursuit for the hunters.”

Day said a poll at the time found 75% of the U.K. population found real bearskins were a bad use of taxpayer money and supported replacing the hats.

He noted that the late Queen Elizabeth II had ceased buying fur for her wardrobe.

Earlier this year, Queen Camilla, wife of King Charles III, pledged to buy no more fur products.

Cities in Central Europe reinforce riverbanks ahead of more flooding

2024-09-18 08:56 Last Updated At：09:01

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Soldiers and firefighters used sandbags to reinforce river embankments and delivered food and drinking water to cut-off communities as the worst flooding in years moved Tuesday across a broad swath of Central Europe, taking lives and destroying homes.

Heavy flooding has affected a large part of the region in recent days, including the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria. Around 20 deaths were reported in the flooding, which followed heavy rainfall but the full human cost was still not clear. Casualties have been reported in Romania, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland.

In some areas, the waters were receding, leaving behind mounds of debris. As reports of looting came in, government and military authorities vowed to crack down on perpetrators. Gen. Wiesław Kukuła, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army, said the military was deploying soldiers equipped with night vision and thermal imaging devices to support the police in areas where people had to leave for higher ground.

“Looters, night and lack of electricity will no longer be your ally,” he tweeted late Monday.

Other places braced for the worst yet to come, including two Central European gems: Budapest, the Hungarian capital on the Danube River, and Wroclaw, a city in southwestern Poland on the Oder River which boasts a Gothic cathedral and other historic landmarks.

Hungary deployed soldiers to reinforce barriers along the Danube as thousands of volunteers filled sandbags in dozens of riverside settlements.

In Budapest, authorities closed the lower quays, which were expected to be breached by rising waters. The lower half of the city’s iconic Margaret Island was also closed.

In Wroclaw, firefighters and soldiers worked through the night to reinforce river embankments with sandbags. The city zoo, located on the Oder, appealed for volunteers to fill sandbags on Tuesday morning.

“We and our animals will be extremely grateful for your help,” the zoo said.

The city said it expected the flood wave to peak there around Friday, though some had predicted that would happen sooner. Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk met with a crisis team early Tuesday and said there are contradictory forecasts from meteorologists.

Tusk's government has declared a state of natural disaster across southern Poland.

To the south of Wroclaw, residents spent the night fighting to save Nysa, a town of 44,000 people, after the Nysa Klodzka River broke its banks the day before. Mayor Kordian Kolbiarz said 2,000 “women, men, children, the elderly” came out to try to save their town from the rising waters, forming a human chain that passed sandbags to the river bank.

“We simply … did everything we could," Kolbiarz wrote on Facebook. "This chain of people fighting for our Nysa was incredible. Thank you. We fought for Nysa. Our home. Our families. Our future.”

Later on Tuesday, authorities in Nysa said the city center had been saved from the flooding.

In Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, the deputy mayor for the environment, Jakub Mrva, said the level of the Danube had peaked and would slowly decrease. He said that mobile barriers had saved the historic center, but that there was still damage, including to tram lines.

“We also observed major damage at the zoo, which is flooded, and there is relatively high damage in the city forests of Bratislava, where many trees have perished,” Mrva told The Associated Press in an interview, speaking next to the flooded banks of the Danube.

In the Czech Republic, waters have been receding in the two hardest-hit northeast regions. The government approved the deployment of 2,000 troops to help with clean-up efforts. The damage is expected to reach billions of euros.

The Czech government also scrambled to help local authorities organize regional elections on Friday and Saturday as several schools and other buildings serving as polling stations were badly damaged. However, a planned evacuation of some 1,000 in the town of Veseli nad Luznici could be postponed as the waters had not reached critical levels so far.

Associated Press journalists Justin Spike in Budapest, Hungary, Karel Janicek in Prague, and Tomas Hrivnak in Bratislava, Slovakia, contributed to this report.