Python Skin Cowboy Boots Get the Boot

Harvey M. Fischer was shopping in a Glendale mall when he noticed the distinctive, bold pattern of python skin on a pair of cowboy boots in a store window.

As reptile curator at the Los Angeles Zoo, Fischer knew that some species of the great snake are endangered and that under state law all python skins are banned from import into California.

“How dare they keep doing something like this?” he asked himself. Then he complained to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office.

The District Attorney’s Office announced a settlement Tuesday with the boot maker, Tony Lama Co. of El Paso, in which the company agreed to import no more python boots and to pay penalties and costs of $143,000. The company did not admit wrongdoing.

More than 5,500 pairs of the boots were sold in California, at about $300 a pair, according to Stuart C. Lytton, deputy district attorney. The boots were on sale for three years, through January, when Tony Lama voluntarily removed them from store shelves when it learned of the investigation. The District Attorney’s Office also seized 300 pairs from Howard & Phil’s Western Wear chain.

“And I don’t know whether other companies besides Tony Lama were making the boots,” Lytton said.

Fischer, the reptile curator, has long complained to authorities about products made with the skins of endangered animals, and he first tried to get action on python boots more than 12 years ago.

During the current investigation, Fischer helped the District Attorney’s Office round up more illegal boots, which made him even angrier.

“It just made me sick walking up and down the aisles, looking at huge numbers of animal skins,” Fischer said. “Fish, birds, mammals and reptiles--whether or not the animals are now endangered, it’s just a matter of time before they will be because of man’s exploitation.”

Tony Lama contends that its suppliers said the skins were from African boas, a species legal for sale in California, according to George W. Buehler, a lawyer for the company.

“They are in fact a species of python,” Buehler admitted, “but it turns out that this species is not on the federal or international endangered species lists. . . . With this species of python, it was legal to export it from Africa, to import it to Spain and then to Texas. The only problem came in California’s extraordinarily broad statute banning all python imports. No other state bans this product.”

Which is why Tony Lama insisted that the company be allowed to retrieve all of its remaining python boots, including those in the district attorney’s custody. The boot maker plans to sell them elsewhere.