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  • 2013-11-17 (xsd:date)
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  • Are Ugg Boots Made from Sheepskin? (en)
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  • Ugg boots (also known as uggs) are a type of fleece-lined sheepskin boot which originated in Australia and/or New Zealand. Today the term ugg both generically refers to that type of boot and specifically to particular trademarked brands of boots (most prominently the UGG brand manufactured by the Deckers Outdoor Corporation of California). Ugg boots are typically made from sheepskin with attached fleece (rather than wool attached to a synthetic base), a raw material derived from sheep that have been killed and skinned rather than simply sheared of their coats. In recent years various celebrities and animal rights groups have urged boycotts of ugg boots, calling upon manufacturers and consumers to instead choose boots made from synthetic materials rather than animal products. In 2008, for example, the Princeton Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) staged a protest on the campus of that university against the fashion fur industry in general and ugg boots in particular: In 2007 actress Pamela Anderson denounced the very type of boots she had helped popularize on the widely-viewed Baywatch television series: However, as some manufacturers of sheepskin products (such as the Vermont-based Shepherd's Flock) have explained, although their products may be made from animal-derived materials such as sheepskins, those animals are not usually specifically raised and killed for that purpose: sheepskin is generally a by-product obtained from sheep that have been raised and slaughtered for food purposes: UGG Australia's Facebook response to an outbreak of controversy over this issue in November 2013 was to deny that the company raised its own sheep and to point readers to a web link asserting that the factories which manufacture our products are fair and safe places to work: The animal rights sub-section of UGG Australia's Fair and Safe Factories page stated (in its entirety) that the company did not use material obtained from sheep that had been mulesed (a process involving the removal of strips of wool-bearing skin from around a sheep' buttocks to prevent parasitic infestations by fly larvae): As noted above, the terms uggs and ugg boots refer both to a type of boot in general and to trademarked brands of boots in specific, so any statement about uggs and ugg boots does not necessarily apply to every such boot (i.e., some manufacturers of products described as ugg boots may use synthetics or materials other than sheepskin). (en)
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