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Life-Size
'Ostriches' Surround Building in Protest After Exposé Reveals Young
Ostriches Shocked, Smacked and Skinned for 'Luxury' Bags
Paris – At Hermès' annual meeting in Paris on Tuesday, a PETA US representative called on the fashion house to end all exotic-skin sales. PETA US purchased Hermès stock in April with the goal of pushing for change from within the company's boardroom, a move that followed PETA's release of the first-ever exposé of the ostrich-slaughter industry, which revealed that young birds are electrocuted before their throats are slit.
The PETA US representative asked: “Behind
every ostrich-, crocodile-, or alligator-skin Birkin bag is a short,
miserable life of deprivation capped off by a violent death. Knowing of the suffering that animals endure for these bags, when will Hermès stop using exotic animal skins?“
Outside the meeting, life-size "ostriches" protested against Hermès' cruelly obtained exotic skins.
A photo is available here (photo by Juliana Marques).
"Every
pockmarked Hermès purse means a sensitive young ostrich was turned
upside down, killed and plucked in a miserable and terrifying abattoir",
says PETA Director Mimi Bekhechi. "PETA is calling on Hermès to bag the
sale of exotic skins."
PETA
– whose motto reads, in part, that "animals are not ours to wear" – has
revealed that young ostriches are kept in barren dirt feedlots until
they are sent to abattoirs at just 1 year of age, far short of their
natural 40-year
life expectancy. At the abattoirs, birds are turned upside down in a
stunner, their throats are slit and their feathers are plucked out –
creating the bumpy-textured skin used for Hermès bags.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk
Distributed by Pressat
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