People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has urged retailers to ban alpaca wool altogether as Textile Exchange’s Responsible Alpaca Standard (RAS) fails to prevent animal suffering.

Laura Shields, Corporate Responsibility Manager, PETA says, Textile Exchange’s RAS was created in response to the animal welfare group’s undercover investigation allegedly showing workers hitting, kicking, tying down and mutilating pregnant alpacas. She says, though the RAS claimed to treat the animals responsibly and respect their freedom, it fails to protect the basic welfare of alpacas in substantial ways.

Textile Exchange refuted many of PETA’s claims, but did acknowledge others. It said in contrast to PETA’s claim, if farmers are responsible for transporting alpacas, they must meet the standards of transport within the Responsible Alpaca Standard. These cover all aspects of transport from the condition of the vehicle, loading the animals, space in transport and transport duration.

On pain relief, Textile Exchange said while there is no therapeutic currently licensed for alpacas, it is actively working on a project to address the limitations of licensed pain-relieving products for all fiber animals across the countries where these are not available through the work with our stakeholders on the Animal Fibers Round Table.