As part of a “Week of Action” targeting Canada Goose over its use of coyote fur and goose feathers, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) staged protests at the company’s flagship store in Soho and at the department store Saks Fifth Avenue, which sells Canada Goose apparel.

In a statement to the media, PETA wrote, “Cruelty can be found in every stitch of Canada Goose’s jackets and other clothing items. Coyotes used for the company’s fur trim can suffer in painful steel traps indefinitely before they’re killed. Mothers desperate to get back to their pups have attempted to chew off their own limbs to escape. Ducks and geese suffer for down as well—no matter their origin. Birds used for their down are inevitably sent to the slaughterhouse, where standard practice is to hang them upside down, stun them, and then slit their throats.”

Canada Goose traps and kills coyotes for their fur and plucks and slaughters geese for their feathers.

On April 22, 2020, the New York Times reported that Canada Goose would stop buying fur from trappers starting in 2022. It would instead use reclaimed fur, which the company describes as fur that “already exists in its supply chain and the marketplace.”  As part of its plan, Canada Goose said it would buy back the fur trim from its customers’ coats and recycle it.  In a public statement, the company said that its decision was made to reduce the company’s carbon footprint, not in response to the demands of PETA and other animal rights groups.

In April 2020, the New York Times reported that Canada Goose would stop selling “new” fur in 2020.

The announcement, which was met with skepticism and confusion by the animal rights community, did not stop the protests at Canada Goose. After the initial pandemic lockdown in NYC, grass roots animal rights groups resumed protesting at the store.  In October 2020, the Coaltion to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT) began protesting at Saks Fifth Avenue over its refusal to stop selling Canada Goose and other other fashion labels that use real animal fur.

Animal rights activists with PETA protest at the Canada Goose store in NYC

“Hundreds of major retailers, including Paragon Sports and KITH in NYC,  have announced that they would stop selling fur,” said Rachel Levy, an organizer of the Week of Action Protests. “Canada Goose, however, has stated that it will continue to sell it. In 2021, when so many fashionable, functional alternatives exist, no clothing manufacturer should be using real fur.”

Animal rights activists with PETA and the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT) stage an anti-fur protest at Saks Fifth Avenue

PETA stops traffic in front of Saks Fifth Ave. as part of an anti-fur protest targeting the store.

Animal rights activists with Total Liberation New York confronted dozens of pedestrians wearing fur while staging a protest at the Canada Goose’s flagship store in Soho, New York City. Canada Goose, a luxury outerwear company, has been a target of anti-fur activists for several years because it uses coyote fur as a decorative trim on its popular winter coats and claims that the animals are “ethically sourced.”

“At a time when the mainstream public was moving away from fur, Canada Goose normalized wearing it again,” said Shay Navon, a protest organizer with Total Liberation New York. “To make matters worse, the Company preys on its customers good intentions, making them feel good about purchasing fur by claiming that the animals slaughtered for the coats were treated humanely.”

Canada Goose decorates the hoods of its winter coats with the fur of coyotes who are captured in steel leg hold traps and shot in the head

In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission threatened to take false advertising enforcement action against Canada Goose over its claims about animal sourcing, but it decided against it because the company took “corrective action.” Nevertheless, Canada Goose continues to claim on its website that the animals slaughtered for their coats are treated humanely.

On its website, Canada Goose claims that the coyotes and geese slaughtered for its coats are treated humanely

Animal rights activists have been protesting Canada Goose stores in its North American and London retail stores, at the Company’s corporate headquarters in Toronto and at the home of owner, Dani Reiss.

Anti-fur activists protest at the Canada Goose store in New York City

Please donate your unwanted fur coats, stoles and trim to PETA, which uses them for educational displays, anti-fur fashion shows, bedding for needy animals and coats for homeless people:

On Saturday, December 7th, several dozen animal rights activists with Caring Activists Against Fur (CAAF) and The Animals Battalion staged an anti-fur protest at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury department store in Manhattan. In spite of pending legislation that would ban the sale of fur in NYC and the decision by Macy’s & Bloomingdales to close their fur departments, Bergdorf’s refuses to take fur off of its racks. The protest attracted the attention of thousands of pedestrians on 57th Street and Fifth Ave, the epicenter of Manhattan’s holiday shopping district.

In March, 2019, the Speaker of the New York City Council, Corey Johnson, introduced legislation to ban the sale of new fur products. In spite of widespread support among New Yorkers for a fur ban, the bill stalled after a prominent black preacher in Harlem, Reverend Johnnie Green, decried it as racist.

In op-eds published in New York City newspapers, African American animal rights activists criticized Reverend Green, who was hired by the fur lobby, for using racism to oppose a fur ban. In a Daily News opinion piece Jabari Brisport, a public school teacher running for New York State Senate, wrote “I found it insulting that the fur trade would use my community as a smokescreen. . . I’ve marched with Black Lives Matter in Charlottesville and gotten hit with tear gas by white supremacists.  I’ve been arrested while protesting a luxury housing development in Crown Heights. I know what a threat to the black community looks like. This fur ban ain’t it.”

Energized by the recent passage of a fur ban in the state of California, Voters for Animal Rights, a NYC-based advocacy group, has vowed to continue lobbying NYC lawmakers in support of the Council Speaker Johnson’s legislation.  At the same time, animal rights groups, including CAAF, Animals Battalion, Total Liberation New York and PETA, continue to target prominent retailers selling fur, including Canada Goose,  Nordstrom, Woolrich, Fendi, the Fur Source and Paragon Sports.

As part of a multi-year campaign to compel the sporting goods store Paragon Sports to stop selling Canada Goose and other coats decorated with coyote fur, NYC animal rights activists staged a night-time protest at the Brooklyn home of Zach Blank, the company’s Chief Operating Officer. Previous protests at his home took place during the day.

“We have sent him letters. We have sent him emails. We have protested his store for 2.5 going 3 years now, and he’s left us with no choice but to come to his doorstep to urge him to remove the fur from all of his racks.” said Leo Nardo, a protest organizer. “Zach Blank is directly responsible for the deaths of countless individuals who want to be with their families and to be loved just like the dogs and cats in our homes. It is 2019, there is no need to wear the stolen body parts of innocent animals.”

Canada Goose decorates the hoods of its winter coats with the fur of coyotes who are captured in steel leg hold traps and shot in the head.

In March, 2019, the Speaker of the NYC Council, Corey Johnson, introduced legislation to ban the sale of fur. “I believe it is cruel to kill an animal just for the purpose of people buying and wearing a fur coat. There is really no need for this,” said Johnson. ”In a progressive and modern city like New York, banning the sale of fur clothing and accessories is long overdue.”

In the weeks prior to a contentious public hearing for the bill at City Hall, the fur lobby hired a prominent black preacher in Harlem, Reverend Johnnie Green, to decry a fur ban as racist. “Fur has given black people standing, fortitude and strength in the face of bigotry.” In an op-ed in the Daily News, Jabari Brisport, a board member of Voters for Animal Rights, responded to this fur industry tactic: “As one of many African American animal activists who testified at the hearing in favor of the ban, I found it insulting that the fur trade would use my community as a smokescreen . . . I’ve marched with Black Lives Matter in Charlottesville and gotten hit with tear gas by white supremacists . . . I know what a threat to the black community looks like. This fur ban ain’t it.”

If the bill passes, New York City will join the state of California in outlawing the sale of fur.