VANCOUVER SUN (British Columbia) 20 September 04 Endangered snakes climb the fashion ladder (Cassandra Jardine, Daily Telegraph, London UK)
London: Python skin is currently all the rage among fashion designers.
From Calvin Klein's translucent coat to Michael Kors' turquoise and green jacket, these slippery pelts with their distinctive diamond markings are everywhere.
Chloe's chocolate-brown python shoulder bag, priced at $2,930 Cdn, sold out in 48 hours at Harvey Nichols. And at the fashion boutique Browns, an autumn delivery of Devi Kroell python bags, $2,900 Cdn each, was also snapped up.
Meanwhile, python shoes, boots, belts, jackets and skirts are targeted for exclusive shops all over Britain.
The snake skin is wonderful to work with, say the designers, because it is large enough to require only a few seams -- and it is cheaper than crocodile.
However, the World Wildlife Fund fears the vogue could prove disastrous for one of the world's longest and least threatening snakes. They also say it could result in plagues of rats (their prey) in South East Asia.
Although all the designers claimed to be using only sustainably "farmed" python, Chris Shepherd, a leading expert on the sustainable exploitation of reptiles, said there was a thriving illegal trade.
Although some skins are exported legally, he suspects the number leaving Asia now far exceeds licensed exports and that wild stock are being passed off as farmed. "It is getting harder and harder," Shepherd said on Friday, "to find wild python because they are being over-harvested."
The two most popular kinds of python used in the fashion industry are the browny orange python curtus and the grey and white python reticulatus. Both are listed in appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), to which 170 countries are signatories. They may only be traded under licence.
"Indonesia is probably the largest exporter of python skin," Shepherd said, "and the government is so concerned about the illegal trade that it has asked for international help to stamp it out.
"I have been to visit dozens of so-called python 'farms' but only one of them was breeding pythons. The rest were using the farms as a cover for pythons caught in the wild."
"No way are several hundred thousand pythons being farmed. Export permits are often forged, and licences for the export of 100 skins can sometimes be found attached to a consignment of several thousand.
"Pythons do reproduce in captivity, but not in great quantity. Farming is also very costly. It takes 100 days for the eggs to hatch and several years for a python to reach a commercial size. Dealers tell me it is far cheaper to catch them in the wild.''