Hermès Under Fire For Its Plans To Build Australia’s Biggest Crocodile Factory Farm For Its Luxury Handbags

• The luxury fashion house purchased The Sweet Life, a former banana and melon farm at Lambells Lagoon in Darwin, Australia.
• The farm can hold to around 50,000 crocodiles that would be the source for skin and meat products.
• Animal activists called it “revolting” and “unnecessary”.

Luxury fashion house Hermès is getting major flak for its purchase of The Sweet Life, a former banana and melon farm at Lambells Lagoon in Darwin, Australia.

The sale was done in partnership with Mick Burns, director of PRI Farming and also known as Crocodile King.

The property was bought to be transformed into the country’s biggest crocodile farm, which was said to hold around 50,000 crocodiles that would be the source for skin and meat products.

Hermès is known for its luxury crocodile skin leather bags.

Animal activists took to Twitter to express their outrage about the sale. They called it “revolting” and “unnecessary”, especially since other luxury labels are opting not to use leather and fur recently.

At a time when the fur industry is going down, in the name of VANITY, Hermès Plans to Build Australia’s Biggest Crocodile Factory Farm https://t.co/GhGDpVZjRL via @vice

— Olga Kikou (@Olga_CIWF) November 10, 2020

.@Hermes_Paris Leave our crocodiles alone #Australia https://t.co/6P4Ws3t9n2

— Philippa Bateman (@PhilippaBateman) November 9, 2020

This is hideous – @Hermes_Paris investing in a massive crocodile farm in Australia to produce meat and skin for fashion. I hope the ghost of Steve Irwin haunts them https://t.co/coPwZkLW4R

— claire antrobus (@claireant) November 10, 2020

Environmental Protection Agency:

Hermès plans to build Australia's largest crocodile farm!
Let's stop using animals for products that are not vital. https://t.co/VJLzUQMlgC via @ChangeFrance

— Hedwig Janés (@HedwigJanes) November 13, 2020

@Hermes_Paris hey instead of a crocodile farm in australia why not try to make clothes out of melon and banana. Crazy thought, but people actually seem to make it work rather than skinning crocodiles for tacky overpriced wrapper holders

— Yes (@irsnaar) November 10, 2020

Made the mistake of going down an Hermès crocodile farm rabbit hole

It’s crazy to me that horrific animal cruelty takes place at all let alone on the scale that it exists today

Then again millions voted for a man who doesn’t even care about people

Gonna go cry for animals now

— 🔴 KAYCREIGH IS LIVE!🔴 (@kaycreigh) November 6, 2020

Crocofile farming consultant Geoff McClure said that there is “probably a very good reason to build a new farm” and that it will be a major expansion for the crocodile industry.

He added that if Hermès and Louis Vuitton buy up these properties, it ensures continous supply for their materials.

“They are harvesting eggs in the NT, raising those crocodiles on their own farms, to their own standard — and that standard has to be incredibly high, with no damage to the skin at all — and then tanning that skin to a very high-quality standard to produce a product for high-quality fashion,” he explained.

The Birkin crocodile handbag, which is Hermès’ highly-coveted product, can sell for more than £50,000. Louis Vuitton’s exotic handbags can go as high as £30,000.

Luxury houses prefer Australian saltwater crocodiles, according to McClure.

This is because these breed of crocodiles have “more scales per unit of area on the belly”.