In response to the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, please find below a statement from PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk, who first met the Queen in New Delhi, India, in 1961:

At PETA, we remember Queen Elizabeth II for evolving with the times and, although there had been no stigma attached to wearing fur when she rose to the throne, chose kindness over cruelty in recent years by banishing fur from her wardrobe. The Queen lived a life in service to British values, and we are respectfully requesting that the Ministry of Defence honour her legacy by replacing the bears’ fur used to make the royal guards’ caps with faux fur fit for the 21^st century monarch of an animal-loving nation. In this period of transition, a changing of the King’s Guard’s caps would spare these magnificent animals’ lives and represent the continued evolution of our modern monarchy.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.