Amid heightened awareness of the public-health risks involved in handling and transporting animals resulting from the COVID-19 crisis, PETA is pointing to a new investigation by Manfred Karremann – a German journalist who has covered various animal welfare issues, including the dog and cat fur trade and toxic leather tanneries in Bangladesh – released by PETA Germany.
The investigation reveals that animals used by the international leather industry are commonly kept, transported, and killed in filthy, crowded conditions in which devastating zoonotic diseases can develop and spread.
Karremann documented that animals are subjected to weeks-long journeys from Europe and South America overseas and by truck to abattoirs in Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, and elsewhere, some of their skins ultimately ending up on shop shelves in Australia, Europe, and the US. The video footage shows weak or injured animals being hoisted off a docked ship by one leg with a crane (a process that can break their legs and dislocate their joints) and then dropped onto an abattoir-bound truck. When they finally reached the abattoir, they were pinned to the ground or tied up and their throats were cut. Workers slit the throat of a cow who was still moving as blood gushed out and threw a sheep who was still kicking onto a pile of corpses to bleed to death.
75% of Australians oppose the live transport of animals, owing to suffering akin to that documented by this investigation. Karremann’s report shows that the leather industry, like Australia’s live export trade, is also responsible for cramming animals aboard vessels to endure long, terrifying journeys fraught with injury and disease, only to face a brutal death at their final destination.
“As the world reels from a deadly virus that originated from the cruel treatment and butchery of animals, this deeply disturbing video footage should set off alarm bells,” says PETA Founder Ingrid Newkirk. “Leather represents the enormous pain and suffering of the animals killed for it and poses a risk to human health, so PETA is urging shoppers to avoid it like the plague.”
More than 1.4 billion cows, goats, and sheep – and millions of other animals – are killed for leather worldwide every year. Inadequate labelling makes it nearly impossible for consumers to determine where leather really came from. Sustainable vegan leather made from apples, cork, mushrooms, paper, tea, and other materials mimics the properties of animal-derived leather without the cruelty, risk of transmissible disease, or environmental destruction.
Broadcast-quality footage is available for download here, and photographs are available here. PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – opposes speciesism, the belief that humans are superior to all other animals. For more information, please visit PETA.org.au.
.jpg){kind=tracking}
Vegan leather spares animals the horrors of factory farms and the slaughterhouse, and also helps protect the environment. (Like fur, leather is loaded with toxic chemicals to keep it from decomposing in the buyer’s closet.) Killing animals for their skins is neither kind nor sustainable.
It’s kind of mind-boggling that in 2020, with so many fashionable, eco-friendly vegan leather options available, animals are still being slaughtered for their skins. It’s time to leave the cruel, polluting leather industry behind.
This is just one of the many reasons why I only wear vegan clothing. Synthetic fibers are stylish and humane. No one should abuse animals for clothing or any other reasons.
This is so awful. The good news is that it’s super easy to support vegan leather instead of mass-murdering cows for their skin!
No, no, no. This is so terrible. Faux leather is so easy to find!