Every part of the animal is used and sold in order to make the whole exploitation system more and more profitable. The animal's blood is used for fertilizing and as an ingredient in pet food, animals’ hair is used for brushes and to stuff furniture. Their horns, hooves and bones are turned into gelatin and put into confectionery, biscuits, jellies, vitamin capsules, photographic films and even match heads!

As opposed to common conception, leather is not a by product of the meat industry. Leather is the meat industry and the meat industry is the leather industry. Leather is primarily produced from cows, raised for both flesh and Milk, and from other exploited “farm animals” such as Pigs, Sheep, Horses, Lambs and Goats. Their skin represents around 50% of the animal's total value for humans, which makes it the most valuable part of the exploited creature. Leather is not the by product, it is the prime product. Buying leather is supporting the meat industry and visa versa. The profits made from leather selling, decrease the meat prices and as a consequence enable more people to buy more meat.

These animals are confined in small-overcrowded stalls, often unable to turn around or even take one step, deprived of exercise, fresh air, maternal care, their natural diet and normal social relationships. In addition to these deprivations, they suffer - genitals mutilation, branding, tail docking and dehorning - all without anesthetics. You can’t divide the meat industry from the leather industry, there are no two industries, they are both products of the same industry, only different body parts.

Many international retailers routinely use skins from cows slaughtered in India. The slaughter of cows is legal only in a few Indian states, which means that cattle marked out for slaughter must travel by foot, in a death march, for hundreds of miles to the few states where slaughter is legal. Since it is illegal to kill healthy, young cattle, they are often deliberately maimed. Their legs are being broken or they may be poisoned so that they would be declared fit for slaughter, not that slaughterhouse workers care.

In these death marches, cows and buffaloes trudging hundreds of miles without food or water and with little rest. They are beaten mercilessly to be driven forward in the searing Indian heat. Their tails are being broken and tobacco and chili peppers are rubbed into their eyes in order to drive them on or force them to stand up when they collapse. Their hooves are often bleeding and worn down to the stumps.

When transported by truck, cattle suffer because of terrible overcrowding. Crammed on top of each other in the trucks, the cows trample one another, suffocating, gouging and blinding each other with their horns. The trucks careen down twisty, bumpy dirt and gravel roads and mountain passes, pitching the cows around, causing even more injuries. When they are unloaded, the cows who can still stand are pulled or forced to jump from the high truck beds, often breaking legs or pelvis. Those who have collapsed are dragged from the trucks and left lying while other cows are unloaded on top of them.

"…while the cows were being loaded, I could hear the gurgling of one cow choking on her own blood. The rope in her nose had been improperly placed, and with the constant tugging on it by rough handlers, as well as being tethered to her fellow cattle during the 12-hour march, it had ripped through her nose, and blood was pouring down her face."

Once inside the slaughterhouse, a huge concrete warehouse, the cows are dragged into the center of the barren room while their legs are tied up with a rope. One of the slaughterhouse workers pulls back her throat and slit it, right after him another worker slices a much wider cut. The workers don’t wait and hack their legs off, to start the skinning, many times while the cows are still alive.

All the other cows witness the whole process. They see each and every cow trying to breathe while her throat is fully open until she finely dies. They understand.

A common source of leather in India is dairies. Since male calves are of no use to dairy owners, some are sold for meat, while others are intentionally starved so that their skin can be sold to ahinsk manufacturers.

Slaughterhouses are intensive industrial plants for meat and leather production, there is no time to wait for the sentient and totally conscious creatures to die before they are being skinned.
Due to the combination of working at full speed in a moving belt conveyor system and the general concept of animals as no more than meat and leather units, most of them are skinned while they are still alive. They remain conscious as they feel their feet being clipped off, their neck and stomach being spent up, and their whole skin being torn out from their body.

"Sometimes they go pretty far. Sometimes they have all the skin out and they're all peeled. Sometimes you can tell they're alive because when you look at their eyes, you can see the tears of a cow. And their eyes are moving and everything. But mainly they just make a lot of noise and are trying to kick."

Snakes and lizards are not slaughtered, they are skinned alive while they are nailed, fully conscious, to a tree. They suffer for hours and even days before they die.
That’s because the skin of a snake that was stripped off, after he is dead, is not 'pliable enough for fashion' use.
Some goats are not slaughtered either they are boiled alive to make soft leather gloves.

It takes 3,000 cows to supply the National Football League (NFL) with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs! It takes the skin of 4 cows to make the 72 footballs used in every NFL Superball alone!

How creative are humans in producing soft luxurious leather? They slaughter pregnant cows and ewes and then skin the purposely-aborted calves and lambs, so they can get the softest skin for their luxurious leather products.

The majority of alligator skins used to make high-priced bags and shoes, come from factory-farmed alligators. Ranched alligators are kept on concrete slabs in half-sunken tin-sided sheds. Up to 600 of them inhabiting one building, which reek of rancid meat, alligators waste, and stagnant water.

"…the worker wades into the stagnant waters and tossed out the struggling reptile. Other workers wielding an aluminum baseball bat repeatedly smash the animal over the head, even chasing after him to administer more blows as the wounded alligator tried to escape…the alligator continued to writhe and move minutes after he had supposedly been killed. The workers took out switchblade knives and slit the base of the alligator's neck…"

In another farm:

"…one worker stood on the alligator's mouth, another on the tail, and the third used a hemmer and chisel to deliver 8 blows to the spinal cord…it took to the alligator two hours to die…"

While the majority of alligator skin comes from factory-farm alligators, nearly all crocodiles are caught in the wild. Crocodiles are often caught with huge hooks and wires and reeled in, until they become weakened from blood loss or drown. Poachers sometimes kill an animal to use as bait to capture crocodiles.

Humans don’t have a problem wearing leather made out of “food animals” (mostly cows, sheep and goats), but from their pets?! No way!
Well, human are excellent with cheep talk but pathetic with actions. Not just speciesist, but also lazy and hypocrites, they buy a lot of products made out of dogs and cats skins, because they don’t ask questions or gullibility don’t believe that many leather products are made out of “cute animals” like cats and dogs.

Millions of cats and dogs, mostly strays and stolen “pets”, are tortured, murdered and skinned as part of the leather trade. Hundreds of thousands of dog and cat skins are traded in Europe each year. In France, more than 20,000 cats are stolen for the skin trade annually. But the biggest producers are by far, Thailand, the Philippines and China which is the world’s biggest exporter.

Dogs are rounded up from the streets and squeezed, more than 50 at a time, into a lorry for five days without food or water until they are murdered and become briefcases, car seat covers, drums and musical instruments, handbags, golf gloves and trimmings on a fancy coat. In a particularly grisly twist, the skins of brutally slaughtered dogs in Thailand are mixed with other bits of skin to produce rawhide chew toys for pet dogs in Europe and North America.
Thousands of dogs suffer the same fate each day.

Cats are stuffed into sacks and driven to the slaughterhouses, a journey that can last up to six hours in a highly crowded track, without food or water. Only male cats are killed for their skins because the nipples of female cats reduce the usable size of the skin. This has led to a scarcity of male cats in the city where the slaughterhouse is located, and collectors now drive to distant cities to round up cats in the streets.

"…one by one the cats were hanged from their necks by ropes, they slowly and cruelly strangled while other cats watched helplessly. They did not scream, since the rope was pulled tighter and tighter as they struggled and slowly suffocated…the cats were then skinned, and the skins were thrown into ice water…"

There is a reason why humans see leather as cool and sexy.
Violence and control are a part of us.
You can fight it and explain to people that it is wrong and that animals suffer for it.
You can tell people that they can buy synthetic materials instead. But leather is a lot more than a material that jackets are made of.
Leather is status. it is a symbol.
Trying to convince people to buy synthetic fabrics is not how you change things. Synthetic fabric is synthetic revolution.
Humans want leather because it is a symbol of power and domination. The problem is internal and there is no jacket in the world that can ever change that.