Crocodiles and alligators are farmed intensively for luxury leather products in conditions that cause significant welfare harms and raise questions about reptile sentience.
Crocodilians are intelligent, highly sensitive animals that in captivity require complex, stimulating environments including deep water, temperature gradients, and space for thermoregulation. Intensive farming conditions deprive them of all these needs. Their neurological capacity for suffering is underestimated relative to mammals, but evidence suggests they have significant capacity for aversive experience.