Badgers are being turned into shaving and paint brushes in China after being skinned for their fur, animal rights charity PETA has revealed.

European badgers found in China are being captured unlawfully and their fur used to manufacture makeup, paint and shaving brushes inside sweatshops, it has been claimed.

PETA members visited badger farms and videoed distressed animals running back and forth inside their cages at large-scale breeding facilities.

The footage shows an employee bludgeoning badgers to death with the leg of a wooden chair before the animals were taken to be skinned.

Another badger inside a cage was missing one of its front paws, with a farm worker claiming it had been ‘chewed off’ by another badger during a fight.

China’s Wildlife Protection Law prohibits the poaching of badgers, listing them and 1,590 other animals as species with ‘conservation, economic and research value’, essentially putting the animals below state-protection status.

Badgers are kept in small cages before being killed (Picture: Peta Asia)

However, fur farming using captive-bred animals is not illegal and has become a loophole often exploited by the industry.

One unnamed badger-brush industry representative told PETA: ‘Some foreign buyers ask whether the fur is from captive or wild specimens, and whether animal protection regulators exist in China.

‘Just tell them most are captive-bred, but in reality most are wild.’

One badger had his leg bitten off by another badger (Picture: Peta Asia)

Badgers are being captured, killed and turned into shaving brushes sold across the world: Peta Asia

The badgers are kept in small cages before being killed for fur (Picture: Peta Asia)

After the badgers are removed from their tiny confines to be killed and skinned, their fur is sent off to sweatshops where middle-aged and elderly villagers, who earn £3 a day, turn them into brushes.

According to the animal rights group, these brushes are then sold online and in stores.

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PETA says one way to stop the badger-brush industry is by getting consumers to buy synthetic products.

PETA President Ingrid Newkirk added: ‘PETA is appealing to consumers to choose soft and luxurious synthetic brushes and will be approaching all companies that still use badger hair to urge them to do the same.’