Many passers-by shared the protestors’ disgust, although for some the demonstration caused more offence than the product. Costumed protestors acted as a Father Christmas butchering a reindeer to draw shoppers’ attention, but were eventually asked to move on by police obliged to act on complaints.

Meanwhile, managers tried desperately to maintain the day’s sales by handing out their own leaflets and trying to entice shoppers into the store. Christopher Glenn, Managing Director of the Liverpool store, claims the pelts are a by-product of the meat trade, and that the company is providing an income for the nomadic communities that rear them.

However, PETA argue that reindeer killing is big business, and that hides are being aggressively pushed for export from countries producing them. Herded by helicopters and snowmobiles, terrified reindeers are pinned to the ground to have their ears painfully mutilated for identification. The traumatised animals are then lassoed and dragged to lorries where they are killed. One protester says, “our act is nowhere near as ugly as the fact. And the fact is thousands of reindeer are being brutally slaughtered for something as unnecessary as a rug”. PETA Europe’s Poorva Joshipura says “just like our Santa got it wrong this Christmas, so has John Lewis because the company has chosen profit over compassion”.

It is not the first time the department store group has come under fire from animal rights activists, having caved in to pressures to close their 40-year old pheasant shooting club in 2001. PETA are urging Liverpool consumers to boycott the store until the rugs are removed. For more information visit www.petauk.org/feat/reindeer/