Understanding the issues: Crocodile farming.

Just minutes away from where millions travel to experience the enchanting landscapes and wildlife of Australia’s top end, thousands of native crocodiles are confined in desolate battery cages, forced into lives of deprivation and killed in unimaginable ways. 

These powerful apex predators, who have helped shape Australia’s unique biodiversity, are being reduced to a life of misery and killed for the sake of profit.

Crocodiles were hunted for their skins, and their populations nearly collapsed in the 50s and 60s. But rather than stop the exploitation of this 100-million-year-old species as it teetered on the brink of extinction – or curb the fashion industry’s hunger for their skins – the Australian Government supported a cruel new factory farming industry, one that continues to slaughter crocodiles for ‘fashion’ today.

Each year, tens of thousands of crocodiles are taken from their natural habitats in the wild and confined to factory farms. In the Northern Territory and Far North Queensland, the crocodile skin industry is farming crocodiles at an alarming rate, slaughtering just over 150,000 of these sensitive animals annually and fuelling 60% of the world’s crocodile skin trade

Australian crocodiles suffer to drive the profits of global fashion juggernauts like Hermès and Louis Vuitton. Their skins are used to make bags that sell for tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars. The fashion industry only desires the skin from the underside, or ‘belly’ of the crocodile. The ‘rest’ of this incredible animal is sometimes sold to people in restaurants and cafes, but most is turned into pet food.

Crocodiles are unique, fascinating individuals. Despite their rugged appearance and seemingly ‘sedentary’ lifestyles, crocodiles are sensitive beings, who like any other animal, deserve our care and protection. Crocodiles use their skin to sense movement in the water and communicate. Every one of them has a unique personality, and they ‘talk’ to each other using complex sounds and visual cues.

Crocodiles even engage in play, with some observed enjoying a surf, or giving their fellow friend a ‘piggy back’. And even though crocodiles have the strongest bite of the animal kingdom, a mother crocodile is nurturing and very maternal – she is extremely gentle with her babies, delicately placing them in her mouth as newborns, and carrying them carefully to water to start their new life.  

They have lived alongside humans for thousands of years. Considered ‘kin’, crocodiles have cultural significance and are a totemic species for some First Nations and Torres Strait Islander communities who hold them in high esteem, with a deep, healthy respect for each individual.  

Crocodiles and their eggs are taken from Australian bushland and forced into farms every year. In the Northern Territory alone, up to 70,000 eggs and 140 live crocodiles can be taken from the wild, annually. 

Farmed crocodiles are stripped of any contact with their natural habitat, and are instead raised in barren, prison-like conditions. 

 After the eggs hatch, baby crocodiles are put into crowded, filthy concrete ponds. As they grow, they are moved into solitary concrete pens, or tight wire cages that bear no resemblance to their natural environments. Referred to by the industry as ‘grow-out’ pens, these concrete confines and cages have very little water, and are designed purely to keep the crocodile’s skin blemish-free, to make them more ‘visually appealing’ to the fashion industry.

In the wild, crocodiles can live for up to 70 years. In factory farms, they are slaughtered when they are just 2-3 years old.  Dragged from their barren ‘prison cells’, young crocodiles are shot in their head. A knife is then used to sever their spine. Then, a metal rod is pushed through their heads to ‘scramble’ their brains. Investigation footage has shown some crocodiles aren’t killed instantly during this painful ordeal, with one seen trying to stand for nearly a minute afterwards.    

At every stage of the ‘farming process’, crocodiles are deprived of everything they need and crave from their natural environments. They cannot control their own access to sun or shade. They never feel the ground or a river bank under their feet. They will never swim long distances to find a mate. 

Farmed crocodiles share the very same behavioural, physical and mental needs of their wild relatives. But in factory farms, they live a life of deprivation and chronic frustration. 

In 2019, Hermès, which owns 5 of the 8 crocodile farms in the Northern Territory, claimed to have worked with farms over the past six years to ‘improve crocodile welfare’. But just two years later, footage captured by Farm Transparency Project in 2021 exposed the reality – that crocodiles continue to suffer immensely in Australia’s top end – all for a handbag.

Making a single Hermès Birkin bag involves the slaughter of 3 to 4 crocodiles. Originating in 1984, the bag was relatively unknown to the masses; it took 17 years and a fateful episode of HBO’s Sex and The City to shoot this bag to fame. Now, crocodiles are paying the ultimate price. The bag’s popularity continues to climb, and in 2021, Hermès’ plans to farm 50,000 more crocodiles were approved by the Northern Territory government.  

Both wild and farmed crocodiles still receive little to no protection, or true considerations for their wellbeing in Australia. Current codes of practice still allow wild crocs to be shot for ‘skin and meat’ sales or torn from their homes and placed in crocodile farms as ‘breeders’, or their skins. Our laws also allow thousands of crocodile eggs to be taken from the wild every year.  

The current code doesn’t even require that farmed crocodiles be afforded the length of their own body to live in. The failing codes allow fashion companies and farmers to boast ‘high welfare standards’ when their farming facilities may only marginally exceed the extremely poor government requirements.

How we choose to see crocodiles, and our fashion choices, have the power to free these evolutionary marvels from a life of deprivation and suffering. Following campaigns from caring consumers, luxury fashion brands like Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld, Diane Von Fustenberg, Tommy Hilfiger and Victoria Beckham have all stopped using crocodile skins as well as fur in their collections.  

There are innovative, sustainable alternatives to crocodile ‘leather’ that are now widely available and growing in popularity. Apple leather, processed mango waste, mycelium and other bio-materials can be embossed to replicate the scales of crocodiles while leaving these magnificent and beautiful animals to live in the wild. 

Education ends cruelty. Many people don’t know Hermès owns crocodile farms in Australia, or the terrible suffering that crocodiles endure to be turned into bags and shoes. Your choice to read this article is already starting to create a kinder world for crocodiles in Australia, and beyond.

Here are more things you can do to help free crocodiles from cruelty today:

• Share this article to help inform others about crocodile farming in Australia, and what they can do to help.  
• Support Defend the Wild’s Drop Croc Campaign and add your name to thousands of others asking Hermes to stop exploiting Australian crocodiles for bags.  
• Write a personal email to the Northern Territory and Queensland Governments, asking them to transition to more sustainable, kinder alternatives to crocodile farming.