Victory! American Express Scraps Crocodile Skins After Push From PETA

For Immediate Release:
July 18, 2022

Contact:
Robin Goist 202-483-7382

Crocodile-shaped vegan chocolates are on the way from PETA to American Express after the company removed all crocodile-skin items from its membership rewards store. The announcement follows appeals from PETA and more than 300,000 messages from its members and supporters decrying cruelty to animals in the exotic-skins trade.

“American Express is collecting major points for ditching an industry that hacks apart and skins crocodiles alive, as our investigations have shown,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA U.S. is celebrating this compassionate move and reminding everyone that for every bag, belt, or pair of boots made out of the skin of a crocodile, an intelligent and sensitive animal endured a horrific death.”

PETA entities have exposed cruelty to animals in the exotic-skins trade around the world. A PETA Asia exposé showed piles of crocodiles with their mouths tied shut, wrapped in bags, unable to move. Workers confine crocodiles to small concrete pits before electroshocking them, cutting into their necks, ramming metal rods down their spines, and skinning them while they’re still moving and bleeding.

Burberry, Calvin Klein, Chanel, Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, and UNIQLO are among the top retailers that have banned exotic skins, and PETA is calling on Louis Vuitton and Hermès to follow suit.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.