Luxury accessories: the slow agony of snakes.

Investigators visited two Indonesian slaughterhouses that supply LVMH, owners of Louis Vuitton, Dior, Céline and other fashion brands - and have and have reported a most disturbing documentary. Workers can be seen there repeatedly hitting snakes on the head with hammers, hanging them in the air, filling them with water with pumps and cutting off their skin, probably while they were still conscious .

Investigators PETA Asia have seen employees slaughterhouse try inept way to stun or kill the snakes in the striking repeatedly (five times) on the head with a hammer. According to Dr Clifford Warwick, a reptile expert who reviewed the footage, "these processes, beyond causing obvious severe pain, generate tremendous stress rather than unconsciousness or death."

The documentary also shows how the skin should be removed from the animal without it being damaged. Staff members suspend the pythons with ropes, then ram pipes down their throats or cesspools to fill them with water. Beforehand, the animal's mouth and anus will have been carefully sewn to increase the water pressure inside their body in order to stretch the skin, making it easier to remove. This method is considered "inhumane and unacceptable by international standards" and "would cause extreme stress and pain in snakes," according to Warwick.

Pythons split with razor blades and skinned, probably alive and conscious

The reptile expert who viewed the footage confirmed that it is likely that the pythons were "aware at all stages" of the attempted slaughter process. Due to the unique physiology of snakes, hours or even weeks may be necessary for some people to die once suffered the barbaric slaughter methods. This means that many of the snakes were most likely alive when the workers skinned and disemboweled them.

Investigators noted that at least a snake's tail moved when a worker slashed the animal's skin with a razor blade. They also point out that no slaughter staff took any care to check vital signs before they started skinning the animals.

But this is not the first time that entities PETA denounced cruelty in LVMH's supply chain. An investigation by PETA Asia on crocodile farms in Vietnam that provided hides the company showed thousands of lying motionless reptiles in concrete pits dirty and cramped, some narrower than the length of their own body. And PETA US has obtained pictures of ostriches - whose skin is used for handbags bumpy texture sold by Louis Vuitton - showing that they are kept in barren feedlots for about a year before being sent to the slaughterhouse. Once returned, they are forcibly restrained, electrically stunned and turned upside down, then their throats are slit; all this under the eyes of their flock mates.

Pythons are fascinating animals that can live for decades and fiercely protect their eggs. Rather than exploring lush jungles and swamps and living naturally, large numbers are tormented and butchered. Why ? to finish in shoes or handbags.

In previously unseen footage, a PETA Asia investigation into an Indonesian slaughterhouse that supplies Gucci with lizard skins reveals how Gucci wallets, belts and handbags are made. The legs lizards are attached, then they are thrown mercilessly decapitated and without stunning, what their cause prolonged and agonizing death. This kind of cruelty applies to each of handbags, belts, wallets and other leather fashion accessories Gucci lizard.

Living lizards tossed around and hit with machetes

The footage shows workers pulling lizards out of bags and small cages. Their legs were tied together, possibly causing pain and tissue damage. The workers throw out the lizards and submerge them in tubs of water. At least two lizards were severely punched on the head with the side of a machete, for no apparent reason other than causing them more pain and stress.

Conscious lizards are beheaded for Gucci accessories.

The workers put the lizards on a block of wood one by one and cut off their heads. PETA Asia investigators reported in their documentary of employees hitting lizards up to 14 times with a machete until the beheading was complete. The lizards struggled and fought throughout the process.

According to Dr. Clifford Warwick, a reptile expert who examined the images of PETA Asia, decapitating alive and conscious reptiles has been recognized as extremely inhuman by major scientific organizations for about four decades and is illegal in some parts of the world.

Decapitation does not cause instant death in lizards. According to Dr Warwick, brain lizards was probably aware - fully aware and experiencing intense physical pain and psychological stress - for more than 30 minutes after being beheaded. PETA Asia footage shows lizard heads moving after being severed.

The employees then inflated the headless bodies of the lizards with an air compressor to make their skin easier to remove.  

“The film portrays the brutal treatment and killing of lizards using methods that are highly inconsistent with evidence-based scientific protocols. Methods that are abusive and inhumane. "

—Dr Clifford Warwick, PGDip (MedSci), Ph.D., C. Biol., C.Sci., EurProBiol, FRSB  

Despite the news from PETA, Gucci continues to profit from this kind of cruelty.

Lizards have individual personalities, just like cats and dogs. Research has shown that some species of lizards are devoted parents and mates, and that three generations of lizards can live together in family groups.

Whatever the vaunted standards by businesses, PETA entities have repeatedly exposed the horrible ways in which animals are abused to fuel the trade in exotic skins. A previous survey PETA Asia has shown that snakes in Vietnam are killed by being inflated with compressed air and that crocodiles are electrocuted, stabbed, swollen and likely skinned alive. In South Africa, US investigators PETA filmed staff knocking ostriches face during transport and at the slaughterhouse, they were stunned and then placed upside down and their throats was sliced away in plain sight of the other terrified birds - all for the bumpy-textured ostrich-skin handbags sold by Gucci.

No bag, belt or wallet is not worth as much pain and suffering.

Instead, choose human, ecological and vegan options.