Your Christmas Sweater Just Got Uglier: New Video Shows Wool Industry Workers Cutting, Punching, Stomping on Sheep

PETA Releases Footage Revealing Continuing Cruelty to Sheep

For Immediate Release:
December 13, 2017

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

As people around the world rush to stores to finish their holiday shopping, PETA has released a new video exposé of the wool industry in which workers can be seen violently punching frightened sheep in the face, stomping and standing on their heads and necks, and beating and jabbing them in the head with electric clippers. The investigator also documented that the violent shearing process left large, bloody cuts on their bodies and that workers stitched up gaping wounds with a needle and thread and no pain relief.

The video highlights just some of the cruelty observed at each of the five shearing sheds visited by an investigator in Victoria and New South Wales—the world’s top wool exportersthree years after PETA exposed similar rampant abuse across Australia, which resulted in landmark felony cruelty convictions against shearers. The secretary of the Shearing Contractors’ Association of Australia said that the 2014 footage had been a “wake-up call” to the industry and vowed to implement a zero-tolerance policy on cruelty to animals, and clothing retailers around the world pledged to demand improved conditions at their suppliers. But the horrific findings of this latest wool investigation—the eighth, in countries on three continents, including Argentina, Chile, and the United States—prove that these promises were meaningless.

“Sheep are gentle prey animals who are petrified of even being held down, yet in these sheds, they were punched in the face, kicked, and stomped on and their heads were slammed into the floor by unsupervised, impatient shearers, causing them great distress and injury,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on shoppers around the world to reject cruelty to animals—and that means never buying wool.”

Broadcast-quality video footage from the investigation is available here.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.