The Financial and Ethical Costs of Using Real Bear Skin for King’s Guard Caps

Recent reports revealed that the cost of the King's Guards’ caps increased from ￡1,560 in 2022 to ￡2,040 in 2023. Animal welfare campaigners argue that each bearskin cap requires the fur of one bear. Since using real bear fur for the caps wastes taxpayer money on items made from slaughtered wildlife, we advocate for choosing faux fur as a more ethical and cost-effective alternative.

The King’s Guards are sentries at Buckingham and St James's Palace in the UK. Performing a largely ceremonial role, they also provide security at the palace grounds. They have become an icon of the British royal family with tourists from around the world flocking for photos as a quintessential British attraction.

The King’s Guards’ ceremonial hats are made of bearskin, sourced from Canada and a product of licensed hunting, introduced by the British Army in the 19th century, reportedly to make the soldiers appear taller and more intimidating when in combat.

Yet it seems that, whilst many other countries around the world begin to address some of their historical pasts that adversely impact the lives of both people and animals, the royal family, and the UK government, remain entrenched in a tradition that supports animal suffering.

This is perplexing to many as the King is a major environmentalist, the Duke of Cambridge a spokesperson against the illegal trade in wildlife, and Queen Camilla recently committed to ending her association with the fur trade.

Through our work across Asia, we are often presented with issues of animal use that cause the animals to suffer and we address many of these by working with the government and those responsible. This has led to major changes in government policy in support of animal welfare.

The Vietnamese government has committed to ending the sale of bear bile, the keeping of bears for bile extraction to be used in traditional medicines and the closure of all bear bile farms within the next few years. Regional Vietnamese authorities are committed to ending the suffering of elephants at tourism camps, and with a public growing increasingly aware of animal sentience and welfare, the Vietnamese authorities are supportive of ending the use of many animals including bears in circus entertainment.

The Chinese government has made positive steps to address the abuse of wild animals such as bears as entertainers at traditional zoos, and China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has declared dogs are companion animals and not “livestock’, a sentiment that is being widely supported by many regional authorities across Indonesia that are instigating dog meat trade and sale bans. These provide just a snapshot of some of the issues that the authorities across the Asia region are taking to address the suffering of animals that in some cases have historically been seen as morally acceptable.

As the Royal family will be aware, there is already a non-animal alternative available, developed by PETA and the luxury faux furrier ECOPEL, that is virtually indistinguishable from the real bearskins used to make the King’s Guard’s hats.

It is therefore an appropriate time for the Royal family to demonstrate a practical, responsible and ethical way forward by endorsing the synthetic alternative to bearskin hats.

As their role expands in protecting the environment and the conservation of endangered and other wild species, so too must issues of welfare and protection be brought into mainstream conversation with actions of demonstrable concern for protecting the earth and its inhabitants, as responsible alternatives are sourced to replace animal use worldwide.

Further, as the public and members of the royal family and, in particular, those of a younger generation, become more aware of the complex lives of all animals, ending an association with bear slaughter can be a catalyst for the Royal family and the British government to demonstrate how the exploitation of animals can further be reduced through the existence of humane substitutes for their parts.??

Written by Dave Neale, Global Director of Animal Sentience and Welfare, Animals Asia Foundation