World’s First-Ever Look Into a New Zealand Sheep Slaughterhouse
If sheep could speak our language, they’d beg you to stop believing “ethical” and “humane” wool labels. ZQ calls itself “the world’s leading ethical wool brand,” but PETA Asia-Pacific’s investigation into 11 ZQ-certified facilities shows workers kicking, cutting, and throwing sheep during shearing. Does it sound like sheep used for wool are “humanely treated” to you? Whether the label says “ethical” or “responsible” or not, sheep in the wool industry still end up at the same slaughterhouses once they’re no longer profitable.
Sheep in the supply chain of VF Corporation, which owns The North Face, icebreaker, Smartwool, Timberland, and other retailers, are sent to this slaughter company. See how sheep suffer for wool, and then use the form below to urge the company to stop supporting this violence against sheep!
4 Ways Sheep Suffer for New Zealand Wool
1. Mutilating Lambs Is Commonplace in the Wool Industry
Sheep are gentle individuals with unique personalities, but the wool industry treats them like machines. In New Zealand, it is legal for a farmer to burn and cut lambs’ tails off without pain relief. These lambs are fully aware and feel excruciating pain as workers burn their sensitive bodies with a hot iron. When fuel for the tool runs low, it prolongs their agony.
When questioned about penalties if lambs die during the tail-docking process, a worker bluntly responded, “Livestock is deadstock, bro.” This violent mutilation is routine in the wool industry.
2. Workers Beat, Stomp, and Cut Sheep for Their Wool
PETA Asia-Pacific’s investigation into 11 ZQ-certified farms revealed that workers abused sheep while shearing them. They carved gaping wounds into sheep’s flesh and then crudely stitched them back up without painkillers. One worker laughed as blood poured from a sheep’s eye.
Investigators recorded shearers kicking, stomping on, and throwing shorn sheep down chutes. One even slammed a sheep’s head into a wooden board three times.
3. Sheep Watch Their Flockmates Die—Then It’s Their Turn
There’s no retirement for sheep used by the wool industry. Even the minimal welfare standards of ZQ-certified wool go out the window when sheep are no longer “useful” to the wool industry. Once their wool production slows, they’re sold and slaughtered for their flesh, just like all the other sheep used for wool or raised for their flesh.
PETA Asia-Pacific’s previous investigation into ZQ-certified facilities led to Silver Fern Farms, which buys sheep from the wool industry in New Zealand. A ZQ farm supplying VF Corporation’s brand, icebreaker, confirmed that it had a contract to send sheep to this slaughter company.
In new undercover footage from one of Silver Fern’s slaughterhouses, workers herd sheep onto a conveyor belt and electroshock them in full view of each other. The sheep see their companions’ slumped bodies collapse into a chute, then witness workers slicing through their throats, knowing they’re next.
4. Sheep Feel It as Workers Slit Their Throats
At Silver Fern Farms, workers use head-only electric stunning, which sometimes fails. A veterinary professor who reviewed the footage said that the sheep’s ear movements and tense heads suggested that the “stunning was sometimes inadequate,” meaning some animals were feeling every moment—and all of the pain—of slaughter.
Kicked, Killed, and Beaten for Sweaters and Scarves: Take Action for Sheep
Every sheep used for wool, whether from ZQ-certified farms or not, is exploited from the shearing shed to the slaughterhouse. Speak up for sheep: Urge brands like icebreaker to use only compassionate vegan materials and stop supporting the cruel wool industry.
