23rd November 2021

Our most recent online action to protect reindeer this festive season has resulted in the cancellation of no fewer than twelve Meet the Reindeer events across the country.

Jack's Stores, a Tesco brand, had planned events at twelve branches across the country in which reindeer would be brought to the supermarkets for a few hours of being enclosed for customer interaction, before moving on. We had struggled to get through to anybody at their head offices to discuss the ethical and welfare issues inherent in these kinds of events, so last Monday we turned to you, our supporters, to ask you to take to social media with polite tweets and comments to make the brand aware just how strongly public favour has turned against the use of reindeer as props in festive events.

You didn’t let us down, and most importantly you didn’t let the animals down, and you managed to get the attention of Jack's Head Office, who got in touch with us to explain why they were under the impression that the welfare of the animals was satisfactory. The opening of this dialogue was crucial and allowed us to provide some more detail and a different perspective. As a result of this, this morning we received the following email:

Thank you for your response on our Meet the Reindeer events.

 We’ve carefully considered your comments, and after taking into account customer feedback, we have now decided not to feature reindeers at the event this year.

Customer feedback is incredibly important to us and we’re delighted to still be able to offer an event featuring face painters, a Christmas choir and festive food.

We thank you again for your close engagement on this matter.

This outcome is thanks to the action of our supporters, so a huge thank you to everyone who took part on social media and those of you who went out of your way to phone head office too. You’ve made a huge difference for reindeer this festive season.

Reindeer are amazing creatures who have evolved perfectly to live in their natural environment: the arctic tundra of Greenland, Scandinavia, Russia, and some parts of North America. They are not adapted to cramped transit conditions, supermarket car parks, and busy crowds of onlookers. That’s why this is such an important victory for our annual campaign to cancel as many events like this as possible: this is twelve stressful and traumatic events, and all the travel time in between, which will now no longer be inflicted on sensitive, intelligent reindeer.

Thank you to all of our supporters for your action.