|
|
|
|
|
|
The Cajun Connection: How U.S. Alligator Gets to Italy
By Franco Regini
You will never see Italian gondoliers bravely fighting canal alligators with wooden paddles, while screaming tourists scramble for safety in the back of the boat.
So, with no domestic supply of alligator skin at hand, Italian shoe and purse makers have come to depend on the Southern United States via French tanners and traders, who are the world’s main processors.
"When you’re talking alligator, you’re talking about an American product," said Frank Millican, director of agro-business, for the Louisiana State Department of Agriculture. "About 90 percent of the alligators come from Louisiana, the rest are from Florida and other southern states."
Alligator skin, a major star in the Italian leather goods industry, accounts for 60 percent of Italy’s total raw reptile hide imports, and half of its total value of tanned reptile hides.
From the Bayou to Beaumont
Many of those tanned hides come from France, or more specifically, from crocodile tanneries in Normandie and near Paris.
Tannery de Cuirs Indochine et de Madagascar, (TCIM) was founded in 1920, in Beaumont, a tiny village in Vivoin, France. Beaumont’s a long way from its U.S. subsidiary, RTL, or Roggwiller Tannery of Louisiana, which is located in Lafayette.
"We receive alligator from Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia–and even some from South Carolina," said RTL’s CEO Bernard DeReynies.
Since coming to Louisiana in 1994, RTL has purchased one-fourth of all the hides produced in Louisiana.
In its first year of shipping, the company sent a whopping 20,000 tons of processed hides directly from the United States to Europe.
"A lot of the skins we tan (the process is actually called crusting) are sent to TCIM in France for dying and other treatments," said DeReynies.
The company is also trying to get U.S. consumers to think alligator.
"A third of our production is for the domestic market, said DeReynies.
Building that U.S. consumer base may take time, however.
"The European market is a feminine market–with $200 handbags and $75 high-heeled shoes," explained Millican. "The U.S. market is a masculine market dominated by wallets and cowboy boots. Prices for small items like wallets are generally lower, and, to a degree, the consumer awareness is, too."
I’ll Have Your Hide–Ship It Soon
France imports about 70 percent of its raw hides from the United States. It ships 63,000 tons of tanned hides to Italy after tanning.
The rest of the raw U.S. hides are shipped to Singapore or Taiwan, according to Millican.
Who Buys Alligator?
The Asian economic crisis trimmed
Japanese imports of Italian leather goods, especially for luxury products such as alligator. However, the Chinese market has recently become more attractive as customer purchasing power expands.
Some potential customers in the U.S. mistakenly regard alligators and crocodiles as endangered animals and thus refrain from buying products made from their skins.
U.S. marketers point out that U.S. alligators were removed from the endangered classification in 1974. They are now protected by managed egg harvest and hunting regulations.
To understand how much is done to protect the alligators, consumers need only look to Louisiana’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
Each year, department officials fly over alligators’ habitat, counting alligator nests. The annual nest count determines how many eggs alligator farmers can harvest from a landowner’s property. It also determines how many adults the landowner can hunt.
Typically, the farmers get permission from landowners to harvest eggs, then the Wildlife Department sets a limit on how many they can gather.
The landowner benefits both from the harvesting fee the farmer pays, and from peace of mind in knowing that the alligator populations will be kept in check.
When the farmed alligators reach 3 to 5 feet, department officials pay the farmer a visit. They will be sending some of the alligators back to the swamp.
"The idea is to return to the wild about as many as would have survived in nature," said department manager Noel Kinler. "When an alligator lays a clutch of eggs, not all the hatchlings survive, racoons and floods take some of the eggs. Even mature alligators will cannibalize the hatchlings."
The remaining alligators, bound for overseas destinations and an afterlife of high-fashion, are tagged. To prove that they were legally harvested, special paperwork stays with them throughout the import process.
There are also limits on the number of adult alligators that can be hunted.
Quotas are assigned, sometimes as low as one alligator per 500 acres, when the nest counts are low. To be shipped overseas, these gators must carry certification that the hunt was legal.
"You won’t find a more carefully regulated form of
wildlife harvesting in the United States," said Kinler. And,
if you think the hunting is done with the alligators’
well-being in mind, you should see the conditions on the farms.
A Risky Profession; A Quirky Market
U.S. alligator farmers go where gondoliers would fear to tread. And when they do, they wear heavy leather boots and gloves. They use catch sticks, nooses and mouth bands to subdue their not-quite domesticated livestock; they’re also mighty adept at dodging those dangerous thrashing tails.
And, as if that weren’t enough, both U.S. farmers and their French partners must also worry about the vagaries of style. The top fashion houses in Milan set the trends that can affect demand for skin immensely. The good news: while demand may fluctuate annually, overall it has remained quite steady.
Captive Gators Live the High Life
Producers know a happy alligator is a profitable alligator. Over-stressed alligators develop brown spots. While these sores heal, they take a toll in reduced skin quality which translates into lower price.
There are stringent requirements on the alligator farm for
temperature, cleanliness and other maintenance. Some producers
even give their gators B vitamins to keep them healthy. 
Hot water pipes under the cement floors of pens keep alligators warm. Water is changed regularly. Pens are designed to prevent crowding and keep curious young alligators from escaping.
What’s in a Name?
The word alligator comes from Spanish, el lagatro or the lizard. The Spanish explorers who came to the New World didn’t quite know what to make of these swamp-dwelling creatures.
Can’t tell an alligator from a crocodile? It’s all in the teeth and nose. When an alligator’s mouth is closed his teeth fit discreetly inside–a crocodile’s will still be showing. Proof of Southern gentility? Probably not. An alligator’s snout is wider.
Competition From Crocodiles
Overall, the U.S. alligator (sp. alligator mississippiensis) is a mid-priced reptile.
"To my mind, there are four price classifications for reptile skins," said RTL executive DeReynies. "No. 1 is the porosus crocodile found in Australia and New Guinea. It’s very rare and difficult to crust. Second is U.S. alligator. Next comes the African crocodile–the most dangerous animal in the group, but also the biggest–each animal produces lots of hide. Cheapest of all is caiman."
Alligator farmers have an advantage over their crocodile counterparts: because crocodile hide production is spread out over many African and Far East countries, the crocodile industry often lacks the skin-tight management of many U.S. companies.
South American farmers who produce caiman hide, however, run a mean, lean reptile machine. Located mainly in Colombia and Venezuela, they have a reputation for consistency. Their only handicap: caiman is generally considered inferior to alligator.
Hides Need
Passports, Too
All hides must get certifications from the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Crocodile or caiman importers have to go through an extra step, however. They must send their certificates to CITES in Geneva for confirmation of validity.
Still, U.S. alligator hides must have all their paperwork in order to prove that the animals were harvested in accordance with the laws designed to keep them a presence in the swamps for centuries to come.
__________________________________
The author is an agricultural apecialist with the Agricultural Affairs Office in Rome. Tel.: (011-390-6) 4674-2362: Fax: (011-390-6) 4788-7008; e-mail: agrome@fas.usda.gov
|
|