Australian Wool Producers Confronted

Experts estimate that mulesing could be phased out in just two years if Australian wool farmers would simply stop breeding overly woolly merino sheepwhose wrinkly skin makes them more susceptible to flystrikeand switch to "barebreech" sheep i.e. ones with smooth bottoms instead. So far greedy sheep farmers have refused to make the switch so it's up to us to push hardand we are doing just that with our campaign to get retailers and consumers around the world to reject merino wool.

I understand why the confronting nature of the material posted by PETA and other protest groups is put forward. i am and have been for many years an animal supporter. I'm a member of WWF and regularly donate to animal charities. I also am the very proud owner of a Merino sheep who is about to turn ten years of age. i was offered to have her mulesed when she was a lamb and when the practice was explained to me i thought it sounded barbaric and refused the offer. To this day i don't think anyone reading this will understand how much and how often I've regretted that decision. unless you've been in Australia for a summer you won't understand the ability of the Blow Fly to infest something in a matter of minutes. I accept that mulesing is painful and traumatic but for that to have occured once is nothing compared to being fly blown. that is constant pain and trauma of having these maggots eating into you and not being able to do anything about it. You can't imagine the misery that creates and this can occur up to 12 a dozen times a year. The process of pinning her down and treating the open flesh is every bit as painful and traumatic as the mulesing practice and this is done repeatedly throughout the year. My Nelli is shawn twice a year in an effort to manage this and i regularly treat her with a repellent the sort of treatment that cant happen on a broad acreage property. I'm all for standing up for those who dont have a voice however in this instance i just don't think anyone should be protesting unless they've seen the misery and agony of the slow and painful death from being Fly Blown. I appreciate your intentions but i don't believe anyones taken the time to understand the full story. Maybe there is a better method but until such is found this is by far the lesser of the two evils and i'm so sorry i didn't research the other end of it and have a better idea of what was involved before i made the wrong decision for my Nelli.

Please protect innocent animals. People stop Killing the animals for sake of selfish reasons.

Will you please step up and do the right thing. We live in the 21st century and are much more aware and humane about all living entities. Wild animals should never be abused exploited and used for our own greed and desire. I ask you humbly to think about all of the sheeps and lambs that are being mutilated. Then begin to wonder what it would be like to have to live life suffering being dragged iver to that device never to wander through the open pastures freely and peacefully in our planet. If we can begin to bring attention to this matter all the other efforts to have animals treated equally will have such a dramatic and positive impact to this planet we also inhabit along side all other living animals. Thank you kindly for taking the time to read this. Rhoon Koerner The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated Mohandas Gandhi