Mulesing and the Australian wool industry
There has for some time been a number of well publicised objections to a practice used by the Australian wool industry called Mulesing. Australia produces 30% of all the wool used worldwide and recently the pressure has increased as Australias largest wool buyer, China’s sunshine group expressed concerns and called on the Australian wool industry to put an end to mulesing. British retailer Next is the most recent retailer to pledge not to use wool from mulesed lambs and joins H & M, Hugo Boss, Liz Claibourne, American Eagle, Timberland and Abercrombie & Fitch amongst others.
Mulesing is the name given to the barbaric surgical removal of folds of skin, without the use of painkillers, from around the sheeps tail area to prevent flystrike. The most commonly raised sheep in Australia are Merinos which are specifically bred for their wrinkly skin which gives more wool per sheep. The wrinkles in the area around the tail can collect moisture and flies lay eggs in them, which turn into maggots and eat the sheeps flesh. The practice of Mulesing removes the folds, leaving smooth scar tissue which prevents fly strike but ironically, they can get fly strike in the open wounds anyway.
There are plenty of humane alternatives to mulesing which prevent fly strike including selection for less susceptible breeds, increased monitoring and treatment, release of sterile blowflies, vaccinations and topical applications. In fact the practice of mulesing is not used at all in New Zealand.
The Australian wool industry had promised to ban mulesing by 2010 but it has now admitted that it will be unable to meet this deadline.
Further information can be found on
http://blog.peta.org/archives/2009/07/something_stink.php
http://www.savethesheep.com/animals.asp
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/200907/s2637123.htm
http://blog.peta.org/archives/2009/07/worlds_largest.php
