See this little cutie? World should be making cuddly plushies in its delightful Pokémon-esque image, right? But it's actually a Bombyx mori, otherwise known as a silkworm moth, the larvae of which is boiled to death to produce silk. (And it takes approximately 2,500 to 5,000 silkworm cocoons to produce just half a kilo of raw silk, with about 1,000 to 2,000 cocoons needed for a single item of clothing.)

So which would you rather – one of these furballs flapping around your dog's giant landing-pad nose, or a lacy, silky handkerchief balled up at the back end of your miscellaneous drawer? And just for the record, we'd feel just as strongly even if this moth weren't as cute-as-a-button adorable. So please sign our petition to get the word going, increasing awareness of what goes on during the manufacture of silk and eventually bringing an end to the process (and potentially swapping it over to something a little kinder, like peace silk). 

[image courtesy of Wirestock/FreePic]