Sheep are gentle, loving animals who—just like humans—experience fear, stress, and pain. Much of the world's wool comes from sheep who undergo "mulesing," a painful procedure in which Australian farmers cut chunks of skin and flesh from sheep's backsides, often without any pain relief, in a crude and cruel attempt to prevent a maggot infestation called "flystrike." Humane methods of flystrike prevention—such as closer monitoring of sheep and breeding sheep who are less susceptible to flystrike—are available and in use by some farmers in Australia.
Every year, 4 million live sheep used by the Australian wool industry are exported by ship to the Middle East and North Africa for slaughter. Many of these sheep have been discarded by wool farmers because they have aged and their wool production has declined. Sheep are crowded together on multi-tiered ships for horrifying journeys across the ocean in all weather extremes. They endure filthy conditions, and many succumb to disease or starve to death. The survivors are dragged from the ships by their legs and have their throats cut while they are still conscious.
You can help end the barbaric mulesing mutilations and the cruel live export of lambs and sheep by immediately taking action on the alerts below.
Please also remember that the best way for you to help sheep who are mutilated and abused is to leave all wool out of your wardrobe. Sign our "Have a Heart—Don’t Buy Wool” pledge to show your commitment to being wool-free.
After signing the pledge, learn about the many cruelty-free clothing options that are available, and use PETA's Shopping Guide to Compassionate Clothing to help you find items that are wool-free. To find out about additional actions that you can take to help sheep and to learn more about demonstrations, join PETA’s Action Team.
Its sad that these things have been going on for so many years - and only now are we being made aware with the help of PETA and the internet to finally unite and do something about it. However - it is also important to realize that Greenpeace and other so called charitable organizations are not always acting on better morals... they are a business at the end of the day - and scare tactics, sensationalizing, and asking for money to save things - sometimes i just feel something isnt quite right... I just wish we could all unite and do something to stop this without feeding companies and charitable organizations. However - if this is truly what is happening - then writing letters to governments and making donations to keep companies alive is justifiable. I think in order for us to evolve as a species and put an end to this - what we need to do now is form small LOCAL groups in our communities, backed by companies like PETA - but under our own management. That way we can tackle things on a massive scale and letters to local MP or party leaders will be on every level. It would be nice is small groups (volunteers) schools, colleges, universities, social clubs, all got involved in this. I would urge anyone reading this to think about what we CAN do and what powers we have, instead of reading blogs, watching videos, sending some lose change then going back to our day feeling a little more empty and helpless to the evils of the world.
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