If there was one way of getting attention for fur bearing animals and the proposed Irish fur farm ban, it was the kicking off’ of ARAN’s new anti-fur campaign! At 11.45am yesterday on Dublin’s O’Connell Street, on a bright, fresh sunny morning - eight volunteers from ARAN donned fur coats and covered themselves in fake blood whilst posing “dead” and been overlooked by a barrage of people stopping to get in on the action!  Shortly after posing “dead”, the activists took to the streets to bring ARAN’s anti-fur message - ‘Your Fur Had a Face’.

THE ACTION: We’ve taken some really exciting footage for you to see. Click here to see the activists pose dead.Click here to see the activist march up a busy shopping street (this is really exciting footage!!). Click here to see the activist turn up outside of Barnardos Furs on Dublin’s Grafton street. Here are also three photos below – more interesting ones will be posted on ARAN’s website this week.

PRESS COVERAGE: Huge press coverage helped kick off the event with ARAN doing a total of eight radio interviews, that’s right 8, on most of the country’s top stations including 4FM, Today FM, Newstalk, Spin, Dublin City FM and more. The demonstration also got great coverage in national newspapers such as The Irish Times, The Irish Sun, Irish Independent and Irish Mirror. The Irish Star did attend the event but no coverage appearing as of yet. Lots of internet news websites such as AOL.com, Metro.co.uk, Ireland.com, Associate Press Images (AP) and others also picked up on the action - even a website in India! For the huge amount of press coverage that ARAN secured yesterday, it was what some companies and other big establishments would cry out for! ARAN’s demonstration literally received thousands of euro in free advertising through such press outlets, and yet our demonstration was arranged highly efficiently and cost very little - ensuring all our supporters donations are invested and spent wisely in helping us speak out for the animals that need our voice. The press coverage of yesterday’s event was without doubt un-purchasable, helping to educate hundreds of thousands of people. Our phones and email are ringing once again as a result of yesterday’s event.

Click here for a great story from Ireland’s most prominent news paper, The Irish Times on ARAN’s new anti-fur campaign and our work to ensure the ban on fur farming in Ireland goes ahead this year.

ARAN would sincerely like to thank all of yesterday’s most amazing campaigners for attending and making this event hugely successful! We cannot overly thank also our most generous donors who help fund all of ARAN’s work - not just demonstrations - but lobbying efforts – education - animal rescue and so much more. We just could not do all of this without you. ARAN is working hard throughout 2011 to ensure that the proposed ban on fur farming in Ireland is included in the upcoming Animal Health and Welfare Bill which we hope will ban the factory farms in 2012.