Snakes and lizards are being brutally killed to provide the exotic skins that are used to make bags, belts and wallets for luxury brands Louis Vuitton and Gucci, according to an investigation by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
The American animal-rights group has shared grisly hidden-camera footage from an Indonesian slaughterhouse supplying the skins, showing helpless lizards having their legs and heads violently hacked off without being stunned first. The replies, accordingly, suffer a prolonged, agonizing death. Workers then inflated the lizards’ decapitated bodies with an air compressor to make their skin easier to remove.
“Because of their unique physiology, lizards do not die instantaneously after being decapitated and their brains can remain conscious and fully able to feel pain for over 30 minutes… The videos captured two instances in which lizards’ heads continued to move after they’d been hacked off from the rest of the body,” stated PETA.
Workers were also shown tossing the lizards around and submerging them in tubs of water.
According to reptile expert Dr. Clifford Warwick, who reviewed PETA Asia’s footage, decapitating live, conscious reptiles has been recognized as extremely inhumane by major scientific bodies for decades. It is also illegal in some parts of the world.
Other videos revealed a practice when suspended snakes were partially slit open and filled with water via hoses to inflate them, apparently for the purpose of making it easier to skin them alive.
“We have documented evidence of cruelty to reptiles in the supply chain for years, but this is the first time we could expose how they are killed. This footage is straight out of a horror movie,” PETA spokeswoman Ashley Byrne was cited as saying by the New York Post.
According to Byrne, Louis Vuitton and Gucci both work with International Leather Works, the Indonesia-based company procuring exotic skins from farms featured in the PETA investigation.
The animal rights organisation sent letters to the heads of Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, commonly known as LVMH, the French holding multinational corporation specialising in luxury goods, and Kering, the French-based multinational corporation that owns Gucci.
PETA, which has urged fashion houses to shift to using vegan leather, also revealed it was planning protests at Gucci and Louis Vuitton stores in Las Vegas next week, and later in New York City.
In response to the report, LVMH was cited as saying in a statement:
“LVMH respects all views and sensitivities on the use of animal-based raw materials and we support and are actively involved in the sector’s efforts to achieve the best possible practices. Our intention is to provide customers with a product that has been made in the most responsible and ethical manner possible.”
Kering responded by stating that it took the allegations “very seriously”. It added that “there is no evidence that Kering brands are directly or indirectly connected with this facility or those practices. Such practices are strictly forbidden by Kering’s animal welfare standards.”
Nevertheless, according to a Kering spokeswoman cited by The Post, the company has launched an internal investigation.
“Should there be a proven connection between this facility and our supply chain, we would immediately terminate the business relationship,” she said.
In a previous standoff with the luxury goods companies, PETA revealed in 2016 that crocodiles in Vietnam that were allegedly part of LVMH’s supply chain were kept in “small, filthy concrete enclosures, some narrower than the length of their bodies.”
Kering, previously slammed for its use of fur, had announced in 2017 that starting with their spring/summer 2018 collection, Gucci would join the Fur-Free Alliance.