After PETA US shared the video footage with Procter & Gamble, which owns The Art of Shaving, it made the compassionate decision to stop buying badger hair immediately and end its sales of badger-hair shaving brushes. But many other companies still sell badger-hair brushes. Please, won’t you help these animals?
Driven Insane in Tiny Cages
PETA Asia eyewitnesses visited multiple badger farms across China, which exports badger-hair brushes to countries worldwide. On every farm, they documented hellish conditions for the badgers, including being confined to cramped wire cages and often suffering from severe, untreated injuries. One badger’s leg had even been chewed off by another badger in a nearby cage.
Badgers are extremely social animals who, in nature, construct elaborate underground burrow systems called setts. Some setts are centuries old and have been inhabited by many generations of the same badger clan. These fastidious animals have separate rooms for sleeping and giving birth, as well as designated “bathroom” areas outside the setts.
But on badger hair farms, these animals are deprived of the opportunity to dig, forage for food, choose mates, or do anything else that would make their lives worth living, causing many to go insane—continually pacing back and forth and spinning in circles inside their cages.
Bashed in the Head and Left Bleeding
To kill them, workers bashed the badgers in the head with whatever object was handy. One badger was hit in the head with a chair leg. Because he was too frightened to leave his cage, workers hit him again, causing him to fall onto the wet floor, after which they cut his throat and left him to bleed out in excruciating pain, just like all the other badgers who were killed before him.
One badger was still moving for a full minute after his throat was cut.
Hunted Illegally
Other badgers who are killed to make brushes are hunted illegally, using snares and other cruel methods—even though they are a protected species.
When PETA Asia’s eyewitness asked how farms obtain badgers, company representatives blatantly advised the eyewitness to lie to potential buyers, saying, “Sometimes foreigners ask if the hair was from captive or wild animals and whether they are protected. You can just tell them that most are from captive badgers, but actually most come from the wild.”
Is There Cruelty in Your Makeup or Shaving Kit?
If you buy animal-hair brushes, there’s no way to know who was killed for them. Many of these brushes are manufactured in developing countries where there are few animal welfare regulations or none at all, such as in China.
You Can Help Stop This!
There’s no reason to use animal-hair brushes, especially when there are so many high-quality synthetic brushes available. For the sake of badgers suffering on these farms, please, only buy synthetic brushes.
