Chanel sheds crocodile and snake skin

Yahoo –AFP, Fiachra GIBBONS, 4 December 2018

Chanel has made the world a little safer for snakes

Chanel has become the first luxury fashion house to turn its back on exotic animal pelts such as lizard, crocodile and snake skin, in a move hailed by animal rights groups Tuesday.

Its head of fashion Bruno Pavlovsky declared that it "would no longer use exotic skins in our future creations", saying it was becoming more difficult to source high-quality pelts ethically.

Handbags, coats and shoes made from snake, alligator and stingray skin command premium prices, with Chanel handbags made from them reportedly selling for up to 9,000 euros ($10,300).

Python skin bags were removed from Chanel's website Tuesday, although secondhand bags were still on sale from more than 5,500 euros from online resale sites.

Animals rights groups cheered the move, with the PETA and the Humane Society International (HSI) claiming that the iconic house founded by Coco Chanel was also renouncing the use of fur.

But in a statement Chanel did not mention fur, saying it would no longer use crocodile, lizard, snake and stingray to make coats, bags and shoes.

Its veteran designer Karl Lagerfeld had earlier told the industry bible Women's Wear Daily that Chanel used fur so rarely that he could not remember the last time it featured on the catwalk.

He said the brand had chosen to drop exotic skins rather than having it "imposed on us. We did it because it's in the air.

"It's a free choice," he added.

'Ethical fashion'

Animal rights groups hailed Chanel as giving a lead to other luxury brands.

By turning its back on exotic skins, "Chanel is saving countless crocodiles, lizards, snakes and stingrays from suffering," said HSI director Claire Bass.

"The growth in fabulous luxury and eco-friendly fibres that don't involve animals suffering and dying is helping to drive forward this new era of ethical fashion.

"Fur-using brands such as Fendi (for which Lagerfeld also designs), Dolce & Gabbana and Louis Vuitton need to take heed and embrace this fur-free future," she added.

PETA also piled the pressure on Vuitton, which is owned by fashion giant LVMH.

"It's clear that the time is now for all companies, like Louis Vuitton, to follow Chanel's lead and move to innovative materials that spare countless animals a miserable life and a violent, painful death," it said.

Although top fashion brands have been under heavy pressure to renounce fur, with Gucci, Armani, Versace and John Galliano all deciding to go fur free, Chanel's decision to stop using exotic skins came out of the blue.

It said that it was now concentrating on developing a new generation of "ultra luxurious" products to replace them from its famous design studios.

Animal rights campaigns against the use of crocodile and snake skin products have not got the same traction with the public as similar crusades against fur, with some luxury brands even investing in reptile farms so they can guarantee that skins are sourced ethically.

Chanel has made the world a little safer for snakes

Related Article:

Dutch metal workers pension fund ditches fur, porn and weapons investments

Indonesian woman swallowed by giant python

Yahoo – AFP, June 16, 2018

Residents of a village in Indonesia were suspicious that a python had eaten their
neighbour so they cut it open and found the woman's body inside, according to
the local police chief (AFP Photo/ROBERT SULLIVAN)

An Indonesian woman has been found in the belly of a giant python after the swollen snake was captured near where she vanished while tending her vegetable garden, police said Saturday.

The body of 54-year-old Wa Tiba was found Friday when villagers cut open the seven-metre (23-foot) python which was found bloated in the village of Persiapan Lawela on the island of Muna, offshore of Sulawesi.

"Residents were suspicious the snake swallowed the victim, so they killed it, then carried it out of the garden," said local police chief Hamka, who like many Indonesians has only one name.

"The snake's belly was cut open and the body of the victim was found inside."

Some 100 residents, including worried relatives, launched a search for the woman after she failed to return from her garden Thursday night.

Hamka said villagers found the giant serpent lying about 30 metres from Tiba's sandals and machete, adding she was swallowed head first and her body was found intact.

The garden in which she disappeared was at the base of a rocky cliff, pockmarked by caves, and known to be home to snakes, Hamka added.

Giant pythons, which regularly top six metres, are commonly found in Indonesia and the Philippines.

While the serpents have been known to attack small animals, attempts to eat people are rare.

In March last year, a farmer was killed by a python in the village of Salubiro on Sulawesi island.

Python eats wallaby on Australian golf course

Yahoo – AFP, December 13, 2016

A python is seen wrestling with a wallaby in the middle of a fairway on
a golf course in Cairns, Australia (AFP Photo/Robert Willemse)

A routine round of golf has taken a uniquely Australian turn with stunned players finding a giant python wrestling with a wallaby on a fairway.

Robert Willemse was on the 17th hole at the Paradise Palms course in Cairns in north Queensland on Saturday when he heard that a four-metre (13-foot) scrub python was gorging on the native marsupial nearby.

"It had (the wallaby) in a vice-like grip and it was swallowing it," Willemse, who regularly plays at the course, told AFP, having halted his game to take a look.

He snapped photos of the encounter before heading back to finish his round.

"I heard later on... as other golfers and staff members came out to have a look at it, that it did actually succeed in swallowing it all and then it rolled into a dry creek nearby and slithered away into the bush, probably to digest its rather large meal," he said.

"There's a lot of wildlife in the tropical north," Willemse added, noting that wallabies, which resemble a smaller version of kangaroos, were a common sight on the fairways, although snakes were not.

Willemse said the scrub python -- Australia's largest snake which can grow to 8.5 metres long -- was likely to have dropped onto the unsuspecting wallaby from a tree.

"The snake would never have been able to catch the wallaby in the open like where it was eating it," he said.

"It looked like it might have dropped out of a tree, got a hold of (the wallaby), then there was a bit of a struggle and it rolled into the middle of the fairway."

Nanning zoo appeals for help to keep two-headed snake alive

Want China  Times, Xinhua 2015-08-12

The two-headed cobra. (Internet photo)

A zoo in the southwestern Chinese city of Nanning recently adopted a two-headed cobra. The rare creature has already survived 15 days but the zoo said it may need to call in specialists to sustain its life.

The 20-centimeter-long snake has two brains but only one digestive system. It was born on a snake farm and was soon handed over to the zoo for better care. It weighs only 50 grams, about 15 grams lighter than a normal cobra at the same stage of life.

Zookeeper Li Keqi has been caring for snakes since 2007 but said he had never seen a two-headed snake until now. He said temperature and humidity changes during incubation may have caused the mutation.

"One of its heads wants to move to the right, while the other wants to move left. This kind of incongruity is constantly affecting the animal," Li said.

The snake shed its skin for the first time a week ago but has since refused to eat. Zookeepers are using artificial feeding to keep the animal alive, but this method is not sustainable.

The zoo is calling for snake experts from around the world to offer their advice.

Illegal python skins feed hunger for fashionable handbags and shoes

Python farms could be the antidote to the $1bn-a-year black market in these fashionable and expensive skins

The Guardian, Sarah Butler, Monday 31 March 2014

The Python Conservation Partnership suggested python farms could be part
 of the solution to the problem of the black market in python skins. Photograph:
Image Broker/REX

Illegally traded python skins worth $1bn (£600m) are being imported into Europe every year as weak regulation fails to stop illicit traders capitalising on demand for the dramatically patterned leather.

Half a million skins are imported legally each year from south-east Asia, most of them destined for Italy, Germany and France, where they are made into designer handbags, shoes and belts.

Legal imports have grown from 350,000 skins valued at just €100m (£82.6m) in 2005 as Beyoncé, Johnny Depp's partner, Amber Heard, Khloé Kardashian and Tamara Ecclestone have jumped on the trend for the exotic handbags, which can sell for more than £4,000 each. But the black market in skins is thought to be worth about the same amount again, amid widespread circumventing of international agreements to limit the number of pythons taken from the wild. In its first report on how to improve the international trade and protect pythons, the Python Conservation Partnership, backed by the owner of Gucci – Kering – and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said python farms could be part of the answer.

"This report offers [an] alternative solution to the sourcing of python skins for which demand is escalating. However, there is still some way to go towards more transparent, better-managed python farming," said Jean-Christophe Vié, deputy director of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's global species programme. "We must make sure that attention is not diverted from the urgent need to preserve wild pythons and their habitats through direct site conservation and action against illegal trade."

In the past, farming of south-east Asia's reticulated python (Python reticulatus) and Burmese python (Python molurus bivittatus) – two of the world's largest snakes – had been dismissed as uneconomic because pythons were thought to take too long to mature and to be too difficult to feed and breed in captivity.

The report said commercial farms do exist in China, Vietnam and Thailand. It recommends this industry could be improved with the introduction of better monitoring, more humane slaughter techniques and the urgent development of technology such as DNA or isotope testing to help identify whether a skin is farmed or taken from the wild. Such tests could help prevent the "laundering" of illegally caught wild pythons through farms. That practice is thought to be so widespread that the report says that all supposedly farmed python skin from Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia and Malaysia should be treated with caution as there is little proof that farms exist in these countries.

Marie-Claire Daveu, chief sustainability officer at Kering, said that demand for python skin accessories was rising at Gucci, especially from Asia, and so it was keen to ensure a sustainable source of supply. "Our objective is to be sure that we don't put in danger these two species of python and their eco-system," she said.

The company currently buys farmed and wild-caught skins certified under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) scheme from Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Daveu said that there needed to be a balance between ethically farmed pythons and the trade in wild python skins, which provided jobs for local communities that could support the protection of the reptiles in their own habitat. But she admitted: "Today there is no way to be fully sure where the skin has come from."