Hermès’ Newest Shareholder is…PETA US!

For Immediate Release:
30 July 2015

Contact:
Sascha Camilli 02078376327, ext 235; [email protected]

HERMÈS’ NEWEST SHAREHOLDER IS … PETA US!
Stock Purchase Will Allow PETA US to Push for an End to Exotic-Skins Sales From Inside the Corporation

London – On the heels of a PETA exposé revealing that some alligators on farms that supply Hermès-owned tanneries are sawed open while they’re still alive, PETA US has become a shareholder of Hermès International on the Paris stock exchange in order to put pressure on the company to end its sale of exotic-animal skins, which are made into watch straps and bags.

“The recent exposé revealed that the grisly source of Hermès’ accessories are living, feeling animals who are painfully mutilated and left to die on crowded, sometimes squalid farms”, says PETA Director Mimi Bekhechi. “As a shareholder, PETA US will work from inside to demand a permanent ban on accessories made from exotic-animal skins, including crocodile-skin bags and alligator-skin watchbands.”

PETA, whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”, released footage from two farms that supply Hermès-owned tanneries – including Padenga Holdings Limited in Zimbabwe, a company that operates one of the largest Nile crocodile–farming operations in the world, and Lone Star Alligator Farms in Winnie, Texas. PETA US’ investigation revealed that workers at Lone Star rammed metal rods up alligators’ spinal columns after slitting the back of the sometimes conscious, struggling animals’ necks with a knife. Some animals survived and were seen moving in ice-water bins minutes afterwards. The video also shows thousands of crocodiles crammed into concrete pits at a factory farm in Kariba, Zimbabwe.

For more information about the exotic-skins industry, please visit PETA.org.uk

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