Amid heightened focus on the intersection between humans and animals during the COVID-19 pandemic, PETA Australia is urging the fashion industry and consumers to reconsider clothing choices that involve animal products.
Recently taking out three billboards across Sydney to urge consumers to abandon wool products, PETA is now also focusing on leather products.
A joint investigation by PETA Germany and journalist Manfred Karremann explored the international leather trade industry.
In a statement, PETA said that Karremann's investigation unveiled worrying practices.
"Animals used by the international leather industry are commonly kept, transported, and killed in filthy, crowded conditions in which devastating zoonotic diseases can develop and spread.
"Karremann documented that animals are subjected to weeks-long journeys from Europe and South America overseas and by truck to abattoirs in Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, and elsewhere, some of their skins ultimately ending up on shop shelves in Australia, Europe, and the US.
"The video footage shows weak or injured animals being hoisted off a docked ship by one leg with a crane (a process that can break their legs and dislocate their joints) and then dropped onto an abattoir-bound truck.
"When they finally reached the abattoir, they were pinned to the ground or tied up and their throats were cut.
"Workers slit the throat of a cow who was still moving as blood gushed out and threw a sheep who was still kicking onto a pile of corpses to bleed to death," the organisation said.
According to an RSPCA poll, three in four Australians want live exports to end, while seven out of every 10 Australians in rural/country areas and towns also want to end live exports.
PETA alleges that similar to the leather industry, Australia's live export trade is also responsible for exposing animals to long, cramped journeys before meeting their death.
PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk said that consumers should avoid leather products.
"As the world reels from a deadly virus that originated from the cruel treatment and butchery of animals, this deeply disturbing video footage should set off alarm bells.
"Leather represents the enormous pain and suffering of the animals killed for it and poses a risk to human health, so PETA is urging shoppers to avoid it like the plague," she said.
According to the organisation, more than 1.4 billion cows, goats, and sheep – and millions of other animals – are killed for leather worldwide every year.
PETA states that inadequate labelling makes it nearly impossible for consumers to determine where leather really came from.
The organisation suggests that using vegan leather made from materials such as apples, cork, mushrooms, paper and tea among others is how the fashion industry can move away from using animal-derived leather and can reduce the risks of transmissible disease and environmental destruction.