Tell Punto There’s Nothing Luxurious About Stealing Snakes’ Skins

Handbag company Punto claims that its products are “ethically and sustainably made.” But PETA Asia’s undercover investigation into an Indonesian slaughterhouse that supplies Punto with python skins shows that this claim is just as empty as its bags.

Snakes—who feel pain as intensely as dogs, cats, and humans do—are bashed in the head with a hammer, hung by their necks, and their tails are chopped off. Workers pump them full of water, slice them open, and tear off their skin—all while they’re still alive and in agonizing pain.

Watch the disturbing footage yourself—and then tell Punto there’s nothing “luxurious” about killing animals and stealing their skins.

Every snakeskin bag was made of someone.

Pythons are fascinating animals who can live for decades. In nature, they bravely protect their eggs and spend their days exploring lush jungles and swamps. But pythons who are killed for their skins are taken from their homes, abused, and violently killed—all to satisfy humans’ vanity.

PETA Asia’s investigators saw firsthand how these animals are killed for handbags, and it’s anything but ethical or elegant. Inside a filthy, bloody slaughterhouse, workers carelessly throw the snakes around and violently stretch out their bodies to measure them. In a clumsy attempt to stun or kill them, workers bash the snakes on the head with a hammer, likely only causing the animals more pain and stress, while leaving them completely conscious.

Next, workers drive a nail through the pythons’ heads, hang them by ropes tied around their necks, and chop off their tails with a machete—all without any pain relief, and while the animals remain fully conscious. To make their skin easier to remove, workers jam hoses down the snakes’ throats and inflate them with water before tying their mouths and anuses shut, causing the animals’ bodies to stretch painfully and swell up to nearly double their normal size. Then they use a razorblade to slice the animals open from end to end, and rip off their skin.

Because of snakes’ unique physiology, it can take them hours or even weeks to die after enduring such barbaric slaughter methods. This means that many of the snakes killed for Punto’s handbags are likely alive and in agony as workers flay and disembowel them.

Urge Punto to Stop Stealing Animals’ Skins

There is nothing fashionable about stealing someone else’s skin, especially since animal- and earth-friendly vegan leather is widely available.

Snakes are thinking, feeling animals, not objects to be turned into accessories. Please join PETA Asia in calling on Punto to stop selling items made of animals’ skins today.