A PETA member interrupted an auction of Hermès reptile-skin handbags at Christie’s, telling the shocked audience of bidders that alligators killed for their skin are dismembered and skinned while they’re still alive. After she spoke, she was escorted from the room and ejected from the building by security.
#NYC: PETA member disrupts #Hermes auction to tell bidders how alligators are killed & is escorted out by security. pic.twitter.com/qGw6wc5VFL
— PETA (@peta) December 11, 2015
“I spoke up today to let people know that there’s a lifetime of misery and a violent death behind every crocodile or alligator Birkin and Kelly bag. A PETA investigation showed these intelligent animals being skinned alive, and there’s no excuse for this kind of cruelty. The biggest price paid for these bags is the price the animals paid with their lives, suffering and dying in agony. I’m proud of my beautiful non-leather bags, which show that compassion is beautiful.”
-PETA member and Manhattan resident Jannette Patterson
Earlier this year, PETA exposed that reptiles at a Texas farm that sends skins to an Hermès-owned tannery were still writhing minutes after their necks had been sawed open with a knife or box cutter in a crude effort to slaughter them.
Ostriches are killed so that their skin can be turned into Hermès products, too. PETA investigators filmed slaughterhouse workers forcibly restraining each bird, electrically stunning them, and then cutting their throats. Moments later, workers tore the feathers from the birds’ still-warm bodies and skinned them.
