"While most leather products are made from the skins of cattle and calves, leather is also made from the skins of horses, sheep, lambs, goats and pigs who are slaughtered for meat. Many of these animals suffer the horrors of severe crowding, unanaesthetised castration, branding, tail-docking and dehorning. Other species – including zebras, bison, boars, deer, kangaroos, elephants, eels, sharks, dolphins, seals, walruses, frogs, crocodiles, lizards and snakes – are hunted and killed specifically for their skins. Rats, cats and stray dogs are also killed for their skins, but since people are typically reluctant to purchase products made from these animals, their skins are often labelled simply as “leather”. A lot of the leather that comes from wildlife – such as crocodiles – is actually made from endangered, illegally poached animals. When you buy leather, you can’t be sure what kind of animal it came from.

Exotic animals such as alligators are factory-farmed for their skins. On alligator ranches, up to 600 animals can be kept in a single tiny building. The buildings reek of rancid meat, alligator waste and stagnant water. Although alligators in nature sometimes live to be 60 years old, on farms they are usually butchered before the age of 4.

Alligators on farms are often beaten with hammers and sometimes take up to two hours to die. Snakes and lizards are often skinned alive because of the widespread belief that live flaying makes the leather manufactured from their skins more supple. Kid goats are sometimes boiled alive to make gloves, and the skins of unborn calves and lambs – some of whom are purposely aborted, some of whom come from slaughtered pregnant cows and ewes – are considered especially “luxurious”.

According to recent international media reports, in one province in Thailand, dogs are rounded up and more than 50 of them are confined at once to a single lorry for five days without food or water, only to become briefcases, car-seat covers, trimmings on a fancy coat or fancy rawhide chews for other dogs.

Consumers are usually unaware of these products’ origin because these items are often mislabelled as “lamb”, “calf” or “goatskin”. Nevertheless, it is not illegal to sell or import dog fur, even in the European Union." Zdroj: PETA