Hurricane Katrina has had an unforeseen effect on the French fashion industry, which says it fears it will be hit by a shortage of Louisiana alligator hides in coming months.
While there is no shortage of the saurians in the flood waters of New Orleans, where rescuers say they fear the animals are feeding on the bodies of Katrina’s victims, the hurricane may have seriously damaged alligator farming.
Louisiana alone furnishes 300 000 alligator hides, which end up as expensive watch straps, shoes, handbags and brief cases. About 80% of the skins come from hunted animals, and alligator farms in the region supply the rest.
The farming is a patient game — alligators grow only about 30cm a year, which explains why finished hides can cost up to €1 500 (about R11 800).
France is the world’s leading tanner of reptile skins, mostly alligators from Louisiana but also crocodiles from Zimbabwe, Asia and Australia, which supplies the highly prized skins that the Hermes fashion house uses to make its signature Kelly handbags.
”Next week, we are going to check the damage at our alligator farm south of New Orleans,” said Dan Lewkowicz, head of France Croco, one of three French tanneries that handle 70% of the world trade in reptile hides.
”The electricity has been cut off at the height of the season for hatching, which requires heat. In addition, the animals risk dying of hunger since the workers have abandoned the plant and fled the region,” he said.
Lewkowicz said also that the alligator hunt in the Gulf Coast bayous is likely to be called off this year.
The reptiles, which have a complex social and courtship life, are nevertheless protected and the trade in their hides is tightly regulated under the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
An estimated 10-million alligators were killed for their skins between 1870 and 1970, when hunting controls were initiated, limiting shooting to a three-week season that was to have begun on September 3.
France exports 70% of treated hides to Switzerland, Italy and the United States, the world’s largest buyer of crocodile watch straps. The production is a complex process involving tanning and tinting followed by polishing with agate stone, a form of hard quartz.
Jean-Marc Bonneville, head of the French Federation of Tanners, said it is still too early to assess the damage to the industry caused by the hurricane.
”Even if the farms in the Baton Rouge region have not been flooded, many of the eggs have been destroyed by the wind or the collapse of buildings,” he said.
Prices have not gone up yet, but given the demand from fashion houses such as Hermes, Gucci, Vuitton and Prada, they are likely to surge in coming months if the supply of hides collapses, said Herve Loubert, the head of Gordon Choisy, a tannery that processes about 50 000 reptile hides a year.
”The Asian tsunami caused a 50% increase in the price of skins from Indonesia,” he said.
The trade is largely supported by hunting and about 20 reptile farms around the world, half of them in Louisiana.
One of the three French tanners, Tanneries de Cuirs d’Indochine et de Madagascar, processes hides locally at Lafayette, Louisiana, producing about 130 000 hides a year according to company head Philippe Roggwiller.
Alligators are semi-aquatic swamp-dwelling animals like crocodiles, but with a broader and shorter head.
Crocodiles and alligators lay between 20 and 90 eggs in sandy ground each year, which hatch between 60 and 100 days later, according to the species. At birth, the animals are no more than 30cm long and up to 80g in weight.
It takes about 300 000 eggs each year to keep the alligator farms in production, Loubert said. — Sapa-AFP