United States. After PETA (Society of People Who Watch over the Ethical Treatment of Animals) shared with Sherwin-Williams a video about the manufacture of China's badger brush industry, the Cleveland-based company pulled a 'Mixed Badger' hair brush from its Purdy catalog.
PetA Asia's eyewitness investigation revealed that to make the brushes used for painting, shaving and/or makeup, "protected" badgers are illegally caught with traps and other cruel methods, while others are raised on farms and limited to small wire cages, where they often go around non-stop and languish with untreated lesions. A badger was missing a foot. When it's time to kill them, slaughterhouse workers hit the tearful badgers on the head with anything they could find, including a leg of a chair, before slitting their throats. An animal continued to move for a full minute after its throat had been cut.
"A fresh coat of paint shouldn't cost the miserable life and terrifying death of a sensitive animal," says Anne Brainard, PETA's Senior Director of Corporate Affairs. "PETA applauds Sherwin-Williams for his compassionate decision, which will prevent badgers from going crazy inside small cages and being beaten to death by brush makers."
Badgers are extremely social animals that, in the wild, build elaborate underground burrow systems, some of which are centuries old and have been inhabited for many generations of the same badger clan. They are picky and have separate rooms for sleeping and giving birth, as well as designated "bathroom" outdoor areas.
Procter & Gamble, the parent company of The Art of Shaving, was the first company to ban badger hair products before the release of the PETA video, and nearly 40 more did so after the launch, including The New York Shaving Company, Beau Brummell, and bonanza. PETA, whose motto says, in part, that "animals are not ours to abuse in any way," now calls on companies that still sell badger hair brushes to follow suit.
