Earlier, the animal activists of PETA, attacked Nintendo's Mario for wearing a tanooki suit. They followed up with videos of raccoons/tanooki's being slaughtered, and even a game of Mario dashing away evilly with a blood stained tanooki suit in his grasp. Nintendo kept it's cool, and responded quickly with this:
“Mario often takes the appearance of certain animals and objects in his games.”
“These have included a frog, a penguin, a balloon and even a metallic version of himself. These lighthearted and whimsical transformations give Mario different abilities and make his games fun to play.
“The different forms that Mario takes make no statement beyond the games themselves.”
Nintendo doesn't need to explain themselves. Anyone with half a brain knows that Nintendo isn't trying to promote the skinning of tanookis. PETA is absolutely retarded.