What would Oliver Williamson say?:
The economy may be hurting world wide, but those that love Hermes
are still buying. In fact, Hermes has resorted to breeding its own
crocodiles on farms in Australia to meet the demand for its exotic
bags. It is reported that Hermes makes around 3,000 crocodile bags
every year and demand continues to grow while the crocodiles are not
readily available to fill orders. It can take three to four crocodiles
to make one Hermes bag, so the move to use their own farms makes sense.
The pointer is from Bamber.
Perhaps a crocodile is rolling him over in a watery grave.
Can’t wait to use this on my next Organizations final
Technically it’s a crocodile ranch, not a farm.
This is great news for corcs. As is well known animals that bred for humans see their numbers increase. This should assure the species is not endangered.
JLS,
If numbers are all we concern ourselves with then yes, demand will insure their survival. But generally, their role in an ecosystem is what’s of consequence, not their existence on a ranch.
To be clear, the ecosystem value I refer to is taken with respect to human and select non-human sapient animals (certain primate species for instance). It’s a support and sustenance service we cannot yet do without.
I credit Nevil Shute in his novel “A Town Like Alice” (1950)for the whole inspiration.
A British woman, Jean Paget is engaged to Joe Harman a station manager living out “beyond the black stump” (or in back of beyond, as we would call it.) She gets the idea to start making shoes and handbags out of the numerous crocodiles with the goal of turning podunk Willstown into a modern “Town like Alice” (Springs.
Wonderful, wonderful book and, if possible an even better 1983 miniseries with Helen Morse and Brian Brown.
Go to http://www.nevilshute.org for more info on Shute and reviews of his books.
John Henry
http://www.changeover.com
John H, if you like Neville Shute try his “Slide Rule”, an autobiogrphy of his years as an aeronautical engineer. It teaches lots about economics on the side.
SN and SUR yet oddly animals that make people happy or a profit tend to still exist in the wild, ie dogs, cats, horses. I am not sure if there are cattle or camels in the wild.
A Croc gene pool on farms would allow their reintroduction into the wild if people thought that beneficial. Crocs on a farm may well under cut the costs of crocs caught in the wild making poaching disappear. So I will stand by my comment so far.
Crocodil skin is very class but kill them is bad…
But it’s too class !
Congratulation your post is excellent !
Comments on this entry are closed.