Behind the eight ball on mulesing
Announcement posted by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Australia 13 Sep 2018
Dear Editor,
New Zealand has legislated to ban the practice of mulesing from next month. The new regulations provide fines of up to $25,000 for companies that mules sheep.
In mulesing, workers force live sheep onto their backs, restrain their legs between metal bars and, often without any painkillers, cut chunks of flesh from the animals' backsides or attach vice-like clamps to their flesh until it dies and sloughs off. Both procedures are horrendously painful for the sheep.
This mutilation is performed in an attempt to produce smooth, scarred skin that won't harbour fly eggs, but the bloody wounds often get flystrike before they heal. In one investigation, sheep were found to have died from flystrike even though they had already been mulesed.
Our neighbours across the ditch have recognised that people are no longer willing to tolerate egregious cruelty in the quest for increased profits. A former Board member of Australian Wool Innovations, the marketing arm of the industry, summed up the situation by saying “the Australian wool industry has fallen behind the eight ball”. While the rest of the world is banning this barbaric practice, Australian producers are still refusing to honour a commitment made over a decade ago to cease mulesing.
H&M, Perry Ellis, HUGO BOSS, Adidas and numerous other companies have implemented bans on wool from lambs who have been mulesed. You can help, too, by refusing to buy anything made from wool, and by urging the Australian government to outlaw mulesing mutilation today.
Desmond Bellamy
Special Projects Coordinator
PETA Australia
PO Box 2352
Byron Bay NSW 2481
0411 577416
DesmondB@PETA.org.au
New Zealand has legislated to ban the practice of mulesing from next month. The new regulations provide fines of up to $25,000 for companies that mules sheep.
In mulesing, workers force live sheep onto their backs, restrain their legs between metal bars and, often without any painkillers, cut chunks of flesh from the animals' backsides or attach vice-like clamps to their flesh until it dies and sloughs off. Both procedures are horrendously painful for the sheep.
This mutilation is performed in an attempt to produce smooth, scarred skin that won't harbour fly eggs, but the bloody wounds often get flystrike before they heal. In one investigation, sheep were found to have died from flystrike even though they had already been mulesed.
Our neighbours across the ditch have recognised that people are no longer willing to tolerate egregious cruelty in the quest for increased profits. A former Board member of Australian Wool Innovations, the marketing arm of the industry, summed up the situation by saying “the Australian wool industry has fallen behind the eight ball”. While the rest of the world is banning this barbaric practice, Australian producers are still refusing to honour a commitment made over a decade ago to cease mulesing.
H&M, Perry Ellis, HUGO BOSS, Adidas and numerous other companies have implemented bans on wool from lambs who have been mulesed. You can help, too, by refusing to buy anything made from wool, and by urging the Australian government to outlaw mulesing mutilation today.
Desmond Bellamy
Special Projects Coordinator
PETA Australia
PO Box 2352
Byron Bay NSW 2481
0411 577416
DesmondB@PETA.org.au