A yearlong PETA Asia investigation into two python farms that supply skins to Caravel – a tannery owned by Kering, whose brands include Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent – revealed cold-blooded treatment of snakes. Workers pinned struggling pythons down by the neck and bashed them over the head with a hammer before driving metal hooks through their head. The snakes were inflated with water, even as their bodies continued to move, and skinned. Please take action for snakes by urging Kering to drop exotic skins now.
Pythons Bashed With Hammers, Impaled With Hooks
The investigators documented that workers pin struggling pythons down by the neck and bash them over the head with a hammer before driving metal hooks through their head. To make their skins easier to remove, workers inflate the snakes with water, even as they continue to move. According to Dr Clifford Warwick, a reptile expert who reviewed the video footage, it’s likely that most of the animals were conscious during this horrifically painful process. The snakes were then skinned.
CCBI’s owner claimed that his workers put pythons in a chilled room for one day before slaughtering them, but there’s no scientific evidence that imposed hypothermia (intentionally causing a reduction in core temperature) has any meaningful effect on reducing sensitivity or awareness in snakes.
According to the owner, at the time of the investigation, CCBI confined some 15,000 pythons at a massive factory-farm operation – one of the largest that PETA Asia has investigated. It slaughters approximately 2,000 snakes during its busy season, typically killing 20 to 30 pythons a day. The owner told an investigator about the farm’s contract with Caravel to supply it with 5,000 skins in 2024.
Kering’s Complicity in Snakes’ Suffering
Despite indisputable documentation of abuse at facilities that supply Kering with exotic skins – including PETA Asia’s 2021 investigation into an Indonesian slaughterhouse that provides Gucci with lizard skins – the company continues to tout its Animal Welfare Standards, which specify that animals must have “room to move around freely” and be “managed to promote good health and treated immediately should disease or injury be discovered”. The standards also require “humane handling at end of life”. Claims of upholding these standards were proved false by PETA Asia’s investigations.