This is the footage of cashmere goats having their precious wool torn violently from their bodies before their throats are slit that prompted H&M to ban the fibre from its shops.
The shocking images were taken in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China, the Chinese province of Liaoning, and in the country of Mongolia during a PETA investigation into the cashmere industry.
WARNING: DISTRESSING AND GRAPHIC CONTENT
Video Credit: Asia Wire / PETA Asia
In the video, the goats can be seen visibly struggling and bleating in distress as their fur is forcefully ripped from their bodies.
The workers use sheers to rip the fur from the goats which are visibly in pain and can be seen piled into cramped pens.
The footage also shows one worker holding a goat by its horns before hitting it on its skull with a hammer in an apparent attempt to stun it.
Another clip shows a goats neck being bled into a bowl and the body of another is unceremoniously thrown onto the floor after its death.
The distressing footage goes onto to show a goat struggling and kicking its legs after having its throat slit.
The eyewitness who recorded the footage visited 20 farms in Mongolia and in the Chinese province of Liaoning and the autonomous Chinese region of Inner Mongolia.
Two slaughterhouses were also visited for the investigation, one in West Mongolia and another in China’s Guangdong province.
China reportedly produces 70 percent of the world’s cashmere, with Mongolia providing 20 percent of the expensive wool.
Clothing chain H&M – the second-largest clothing retailer in the world – has reportedly agreed to ban “conventional” cashmere (the only kind that it sells) as a result of the investigation.
PETA Senior Vice President of International Campaigns Jason Baker said: “Timid goats suffer immensely as their hair is yanked out and their throats are hacked at with knives, all for cashmere coats and scarves.
“PETA is calling on shoppers worldwide to reject cruelty to animals by leaving all cashmere items on the rack.”
The animal rights organisation also pointed out that cashmere production has the worst environmental impact of any animal-derived fibre as goats eat plant roots preventing regrowth.
PETA report that soft and non-existent animals rights laws in Mongolia and China prevent the conditions the goats are exposed to being punished by law.
Cashmere wool fibre for clothing is obtained from the neck region of Cashmere and other goats.
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Story By: Alex Cope; Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder; Agency: Asia Wire Report;
