The Australian wool industry is already notorious for its barbaric treatment of sheep, because Australia is the only country in which mutilating sheep is still routinely used for flystrike prevention and because many sheep once used for wool are sold for live export to countries which have extremely low animal welfare standards. PETA US' video exposé of the wool industry – which shows that workers violently punched scared sheep in the face, stamped and stood on their heads and necks and beat and jabbed them in the face with electric clippers and a hammer – has appalled consumers even more. Investigators documented that large, bloody wounds were left on the sheep's bodies after shearing and that workers stitched gaping wounds closed using a needle and thread without administering any pain relief.
The investigators visited 19 separate shearing sheds in Australia and observed cruelty in every single one.
PETA US has compiled a strong case that shows a continuing pattern of improper and illegal behaviour that is tolerated within this industry. In this instance, investigators stuck it out through constant un-reprimanded cruelty in order to show how common, repetitive and routine the abuse of sheep is and that it happens as a matter of course in one shearing shed after another, after another.
PETA Australia has written to Minister for Agriculture Barnaby Joyce to note that PETA US turned over comprehensive evidence – including footage of 235 incidents of cruelty recorded in Victoria alone and more than 40 pages of formal legal complaints – to the relevant authorities before footage was released publicly, and PETA US asked authorities to investigate and file criminal charges against the workers, as appropriate, for violations of each state's specific cruelty-to-animals laws.
It is shocking that the minister chose to question the investigators' methods of obtaining this chilling evidence – rather than asking why workers in these shearing sheds were routinely allowed to abuse the sheep. Australians would surely prefer that the minister supported prosecutions against abusers instead of apparently attempting to shrug off the abuse.
The investigators visited 19 separate shearing sheds in Australia and observed cruelty in every single one. Crew supervisors were present in the sheds, and even station managers, farmhands and workers affiliated with the producers were in sheds as well. Yet no one was ever reprimanded for the abuse that occurred.
This is not the first time that shearers have been shown mistreating sheep. Last year, the Australian Workers Union's national pastoral industry co-ordinator, Sam Beechey, told ABC Rural that some shearers take out their frustrations on the sheep and that he has witnessed shearers gouging sheep's eyes and breaking their jaws. "I think it's a disgrace, it's an absolute disgrace", Beechey said.
A retired shearer told ABC Rural that he, too, was "disgusted" by the abuse that he has witnessed in shearing sheds over the years but said that "most of the farmers just tolerate it". And other accounts of cruelty are now being heard.
No amount of fluff can hide the fact that there is simply no such thing as "humane" wool. As the authorities investigate the extensive evidence submitted by PETA US, we are asking compassionate Australians to leave wool out of their wardrobe for good.
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