TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — PETA Asia supporters dressed, one dressed as a snake and another as a python farm worker, reenacted the slaughter and skinning of pythons outside a Gucci store in Taipei’s bustling Xinyi District on Tuesday afternoon (Aug. 6), per a PETA Asia press release.
The public action follows the latest PETA Asia investigation revealing that workers at two python farms that supply skins to a tannery operated by Kering, owner of Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, have a history of mistreating pythons, raising them in filthy conditions, and cruelly processing their skins.
A PETA Asia video showed struggling pythons held down by the neck before being bashed on the head with a hammer to kill them. Later, still-moving pythons were impaled on hooks as they awaited skinning to supply the popular fashion brand.
“These snakes spend their short lives confined to tiny, filthy boxes before being bashed with a hammer, pierced through the skull, and skinned,” said PETA Asia Senior Vice President Jason Baker in a press release.
“PETA is calling on Kering to stop selling anything produced from the slaughter of pythons or other wild animals and switch to cruelty-free vegan materials that compassionate consumers demand,” said Baker.
Multiple Python skins are used to produce Gucci’s “precious skin” handbags, which command premium prices. Crocodile skins are also harvested for this product line, which PETA Asia also believes is cruel and unnecessary.
PETA, whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear," opposes speciesism and a worldview that elevates humans above the rest of the environment.
