The economic importance of animal hides and skins as the source material for the natural leather industry is significant world-wide, and in some countries of the developing world the livelihood of a large proportion of the population depends upon it. Consequently, it is understandable that anything affecting the quality of the source material and the finished product has major economic, industrial and sociological significance. It is also inevitable that a product that is so widely-used in many ways by most of the population will become an important source of evidence in forensic investigations.

Quality control procedures in the leather industry involve monitoring the progress of the hides and skins from the growth stages of the animal, through the slaughter, storage, transportation, curing, tanning and finishing processes, to the sale and distribution of the finished product. There are many factors during these stages that can affect quality of finished leather, amongst the most important of which are mechanical and parasite damage during growth, biodeterioration and mechanical damage between slaughter and curing, mechanical, heat and chemical damage during curing, tanning and finishing.