We tried to play nice. A couple of weeks ago, we placed this G-rated ad in Minnesota’s Mall of America to encourage holiday shoppers to leave wool off their gift lists:
Sheep: © iStock.com/Enjoylife2
But after the ads were in place for just two weeks, the mall took them down, supposedly because of complaints.
That’s when we decided to kick things up a notch. Earlier this week, we sent a contingent of nearly nude PETA supporters, bodypainted to look bruised, beaten, and bloodied and brandishing a “dead lamb,” to Minneapolis and Milwaukee in order to alert people to the suffering in every wool sweater and coat.
PETA recently released video footage showing workers on a massive sheep farm in Chile mutilating, killing, and skinning sheep—sometimes while the animals were still alive. PETA has released six exposés recorded at 39 facilities on three continents revealing that shearers—who are often paid by volume, not by the hour—beat, kick, and slash sheep, sometimes leaving gaping wounds. The worst wounds are then stitched closed—without giving the animals any painkillers. One shearer twisted a sheep’s neck so severely that he broke it, killing the animal. Our exposés recently prompted the first-ever cruelty-to-animals charges against shearers.
What You Can Do
Give sheep some peace on Earth this year by keeping wool apparel off your shopping lists.
