‘Bloody’ PETA ‘Reptile’ to Protest Hermès Horror: Live Animals Sawed Open on Supplier’s Farm

Bodypainted ‘Crocodile’ Will Highlight Miserable Lives and Deaths of Reptiles Who Become ‘Luxury’ Watchbands and Birkin Bags

For Immediate Release:
September 1, 2015

Contact:
Sophia Chharchuk 202-483-7382

Shoppers in Greenwich will get an eyeful on Wednesday as a PETA “reptile” lies in a pool of “blood” outside retailer Hermès’ storefront. Painted to look like a crocodile and flanked by a banner proclaiming, “Hermès: Accessories to Murder,” the protester will call on consumers not to buy the skins of tormented animals, whose plight PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—brought to light in a recent investigation that was reported by CBSNews.com.

Where:           Hermès, 289 Greenwich Ave., Greenwich

When:             Wednesday, September 2, 12 p.m.

“PETA’s exposé of Hermès suppliers in the U.S. and Africa reveals that every Hermès watchband or Birkin bag means a living, feeling being experienced a miserable life and a ghastly death,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “People pay thousands of dollars for such accessories, but the reptiles on these cruel and disgusting factory farms are paying the real price.”

PETA’s investigator documented the mistreatment of alligators on a filthy Texas farm that supplies Hermès. After a captive-bolt gun at the facility was believed to be malfunctioning, the manager told a worker to cut into hundreds of live and fully conscious alligators to try to dislocate their vertebrae and then shove a metal rod up their spinal columns. Some reptiles were writhing minutes after their necks were sawed open with a knife or box cutter in a crude effort to slaughter them—all for $2,000 watchbands. Footage captured in Zimbabwe showed that thousands of crocodiles were crowded into barren concrete pits for $40,000-plus Birkin and Kelly bags.

Broadcast-quality footage is available here, and photos are available here. For more information, please visit PETA.org.