Ending animal cruelty in the fashion industry

Mink, crocodiles, ostriches, kangaroos and other wild animals are innocent victims of cruelty in fashion.

Image credit: Farm Transparency Project

Despite the availability of humane fashion alternatives, animal cruelty in fashion continues.

Right now, millions of wild animals are being captured or bred to be mercilessly slaughtered so that the fashion industry can maximise their profit at the cost of these thinking, feeling beings.

They belong in the wild but are often kept in intensively cruel and captive environments in which they can barely survive, let alone thrive.

After being kept in substandard conditions that barely allow them to move, they are often killed in the most horrific way as if they are not sentient living beings.

All so their skin, fur, and feathers can be turned into non-essential luxury fashion items like handbags, coats, belts, and shoes.

All animals – whether they be mink or crocodiles – deserve lives worth living. You have the power to choose “compassion” over animal cruelty in fashion.

Spotlight on skins

Crocodile skin. Credit: Dean Sewell.

Each year, thousands of Australian crocodiles already suffer a short, crowded life before a brutal death. Typically, crocodiles are electrocuted to immobilise them before travel or slaughter. The charge is given on the back of the neck for 4-6 seconds through a pole with a set of metal prongs on the end, before the back of the neck is cut, and the brain is pierced.

French luxury fashion brand Hermès is planning to open a massive new farm in the Northern Territory. If it opens, the farm will house up to 50,000 saltwater crocodiles to be slaughtered for non-essential luxury items like handbags, belts and shoes. Three to four crocodiles are killed just to make one expensive luxury handbag. They are truly victims of fashion.

Australian crocodiles are not luxury French handbags. They are wild animals who belong in the wild. All wild animals deserve to be protected from suffering and exploitation. Crocodiles deserve a life free from stress and suffering – a life that doesn’t hurt. Together, we can put an end to animal cruelty in the fashion industry.

Spotlight on feathers

Ostriches on a farm. Credit: Peta

Every year, tens of thousands of wild birds like ostriches, peacocks and pheasants are exploited and slaughtered at a small fraction of their natural lifespan for their feathers to be used by the fashion industry. These sensitive birds are typically confined to barren factory farms or feedlots where their feathers may be brutally ripped out of their skin in a process called 'live plucking'. As a result, many birds suffer from bleeding, injuries and open wounds.

Ostriches, whose feathers are commonly found as trims on dresses, are legally allowed to be starved and denied water for 24 hours before their slaughter. They are typically stunned – either with a captive bolt gun or electrically – before being shackled, hung upside down, and then left to bleed out. Many of these birds watch their distressed flockmates struggle against slaughtermen, according to undercover investigations.

With the availability of humane and innovative alternatives and a whopping 82% of Aussies deeming the farming or killing of animals for fashion unacceptable, it’s time for the fashion industry to choose compassion and transition to a wildlife-free future of fashion.