PETA Member to Confront Louis Vuitton Executives at Annual Meeting
Exposés Reveal Ostriches’ Throats Slit, Crocodiles Skinned Alive for Company’s Exotic-Skin Items
For Immediate Release:
April 11, 2018
Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382
Stop selling bags and other items made from the skins of crocodiles and ostriches: That’s the message a PETA representative will take to Louis Vuitton’s parent company, LVMH, at its annual meeting in Paris tomorrow.
When: Thursday, April 12, 10:30 a.m.
Where: Carrousel du Louvre, 99 Rue de Rivoli, Paris
PETA bought a stake in LVMH in 2017 in order to pressure the company to end its use of animal skins after an exposé of Vietnam crocodile farms—including two that have supplied skins to a tannery owned by LVMH—revealed that reptiles are cut apart while still alive and thrashing in agony. Footage also showed that thousands of crocodiles are confined to concrete cages, some smaller than their own bodies, and that workers ram metal rods down their spines as blood pours from their wounds. Other killing methods include severing the spinal cord with a hammer and chisel, crushing the skull with a baseball bat, or cutting off the head.
“LVMH knows full well the extreme cruelty behind its bags, watchbands, and shoes,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “This company has blood on its hands, and PETA will continue to demand that it stop selling the stolen skin of animals who endured extreme confinement and agonizing deaths.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—also obtained eyewitness video footage in 2015 showing that ostriches, who are used for the bumpy-textured or “goose bump” skin purses sold by LVMH and other designer brands, are kept in barren dirt feedlots before being trucked to slaughterhouses. Once there, workers forcibly restrain birds on the kill floor, electrically stun them, and then slit their throats in full view of their terrified flockmates. Their feathers are then torn from their still-warm bodies, and they’re skinned and dismembered.
For images of PETA’s previous demonstrations against LVMH, please click here.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
