WHOSE SKIN ARE YOU IN?

The following article has been taken from a PETA site to let my readers know about the cruelty in the leather industry.
Think you'd look cool in that leather jacket? How cool would you feel if you knew that you could be wearing baby goats' skin-or even skin from dogs? Cows aren't the only species whose skins wind up in shoes and handbags-pigs on factory farms, exotic animals like kangaroos and alligators, and dogs and cats just like our own beloved companions (who are killed for meat in China and other countries and whose skins are then imported into the U.S.) are among the millions of animals slaughtered every year for the global leather industry.

Confined to filthy stalls barely bigger than their own bodies, breeding pigs on factory farms spend their entire lives on concrete-unable to forage or do anything that comes naturally to them. These sensitive animals are subjected to agonizing mutilations like teeth-clipping, ear-notching, castration, and tail-docking-all without painkillers. Constantly pregnant or nursing, sows are squeezed into narrow metal "iron maiden" stalls, unable even to turn around. Although pigs are naturally social animals, their stress level is so high that they often resort to cannibalism and tail-biting when packed into crowded pens or when they are kept isolated and confined. Lack of exercise causes pigs to become so weak that they can barely walk a few yards. At the slaughterhouse, workers jab metal hooks into their eyes, mouths, or rectums to force them to move faster. Pigs inadequately "stunned" by bolt guns and bludgeoning with gate poles, hammers, and wrenches may be fully conscious when immersed in a tank of scalding water for hair removal.

EXOTIC SKINS

Other species are hunted and killed specifically for their skins, including zebras, bison, water buffaloes, boars, deer, kangaroos, elephants, eels, sharks, dolphins, seals, walruses, frogs, crocodiles, lizards, and snakes. A large percentage of imported crocodile shoe leather and other items made from wildlife come from endangered, illegally hunted animals. Humane treatment is not a priority of poachers and hunters who deal in the dirty exotic leather trade:

Goats may be boiled alive to make kid gloves, and the skins of purposely aborted calves and lambs are considered especially "luxurious."Snakes and lizards are often skinned alive because of the belief that live flaying imparts suppleness to the finished leather.Alligators on factory farms are packed into half-sunken sheds, immersed in filthy stagnant water rife with their own waste and the stench of rancid meat.Crocodiles are often caught in the wild with huge hooks and wires and reeled in when they become weakened from blood loss or drown.Many animals are skinned when they are still alive-sometimes remaining conscious and in agony for up to two hours-and then beaten to death with hammers, axes, and aluminum baseball bats.In Australia, where millions of kangaroos are slaughtered every year for their hides, orphaned joeys and wounded kangaroos are considered collateral damage and the government mandates that they be decapitated or hit sharply on the head "to destroy the brain.

"DOGS AND CATS Other skins come from more familiar faces. Hundreds of thousands of dog and cat skins are traded in Europe each year (with an estimated 2 million killed in China to meet the demand). Many are bought unknowingly by consumers since products made from dog and cat fur are often intentionally mislabeled and do not accurately indicate their origin. In France, more than 20,000 cats are stolen for the skin trade annually; during a police raid on a tannery, 1,500 cat skins, used to make baby shoes, were seized.