Queens Mural Protests Fur Hoods In Canada Goose Coats

ASTORIA, QUEENS -- A popular city street artist braved the cold for hours in Astoria spray painting a towering mural of three coyotes emblazoned with a message of protest: "Not Your Fur."

The message was directed at Canada Goose, a prominent Canadian winter coat company that PETA claims uses cruel tactics to kill coyotes for the fur-lined hoods of its winter coats. The animal rights organization partnered with Praxis, a New York City-based street artist, to erect the mural in Welling Court on Friday.

"The thinking behind this it to show the public that animals are not ours to wear," Ashley Byrne, PETA's associate director of campaigns, told Patch. "One of the worst parts about these Canada Goose coats is that so many people buy them without realizing the hood is real fur. They just assume it's fake."

PETA claims Canada Goose inhumanely traps coyotes for the fur lining on its winter coats. Praxis aimed to depict that concept on his mural for the Welling Court Mural Project, an area in Astoria designated to street art. The final product was three coyotes splayed diagonally across a teal blue backdrop, the first one painted with a bloodied paw caught inside a trap.

A spokesperson for Canada Goose called PETA's claims about its animal welfare practices "grossly misinformed" in a statement to Patch, saying the animal rights organization and other activists were "misrepresenting the truth for their own purposes."

"They ignore the strict government regulation and standards that are in place, as well as our commitment to animal welfare and the responsible use and ethical sourcing of all animal materials in our products as evidenced by our comprehensive traceability program and Fur and Down Transparency Standards,” the spokesperson said.

Painted in the mural's lower right corner is the hashtag #CanadaGooseKills, which PETA used to categorize the mural and other citywide demonstrations against the company on social media last week, Byrne said. On Wednesday, the group plans to release more videos from similar protests across New York City on its social media accounts, she said.

Byrne considers the last week's demonstrations successful, saying some spectators donated the fur lining on their own Canada Goose coats to PETA after learning they were made of real fur.

"We knew that so many people were buying these coats not having known the trims are real fur," Byrne said. "When they ask about it, they're misled to believe this fur is attained in a humane way. There's no such thing as fur that's humane."

While she said the mural painting itself didn't draw a huge crowd - something she blamed on cold weather and the mural's painting being " a very long process" - she said a livestream of the painting got more than 39,000 views on the organization's Facebook page and was "very widely viewed on twitter."

Lead image via PETA. Caption: NYC-based street artist, Praxis, stands in front of his finished mural protesting Canada Goose in Astoria's Wellington Court Mural Project.