What is it about?
It is again about torture, suffering and economic crime in the name of profit.
It’s about surgical intervention on sheeps without the use of painkillers or narcotics in Australia.
We have to stop that.
It was documented by a film crew producing 90 percent of the merino wool for our clothing. On several sheep farms, activists have found out that the first weeks of life of a lamb are determined by painful interventions that are usually performed without anesthetic: they cut off the tail, castrate male offspring, and then comes the “Mulesing” to protect the animals of the fly maggots.
The cries of lambs who have to undergo these procedures without painkillers are heartbreaking.
At 88 percent, Australia is the largest producer of fine merino wool worldwide. Around 90 percent of the 74 million merino sheep living there are undergoing “mulesing”.
What is mulesing?
The Merinos were bred to get wrinkled skin, so the wool yield per animal is even greater, which increases the profit per animal. It is clear: on much skin surface grows a lot of fine, soft wool. And that brings money!
Because of the unnatural abundance of wool, many sheep die of heat stroke in the hot months. Humidity and urine accumulate in the skin folds, attracting flies that deposit their eggs in the skin folds. The larvae hatched a little later can eat the sheep from the inside alive. In order to avoid the loss of sheep due to this “fly infestation”, the Australian rancher performs the “mulesing” (named after the inventor of the method, John Mules).
In this barbaric mulesing, the lambs are thrown on their backs with force and their legs are fixed between metal bars.
Then they cut them – often with a simple pruning shears and without anesthesia – large plates of meat from the area around their tail, around the anus and (in women) around the vulva (no one would come up with the idea of a toddler even just a few square centimeters of skin cut out without anesthetic).
The aim of this cruel procedure is to create a smooth, scarred surface that eliminates the need for fly eggs. Often, however, the opposite is achieved because it is these large, bloody wounds that are often attacked by flies, even before they can heal.
The solution:
We call for an immediate ban on all operations on sheep without the use of painkillers or narcotics.
In addition, the government must oblige the wool industry to set a new date for an end to mulesing.
Because in order to abolish the mulesing, there is only one solution in the long run: Merino sheep must be bred, which are less wrinkled and have weak wool growth in the tail and anal area.
That works, but has not been effectively promoted in recent years.
There was even an ultimatum that the Australian wool producers themselves had set: In response to pressure from animal welfare organizations, Australian farmers agreed in 2004 to cease “mulesing” by 2010. However, a few years later, the industry has given up plans to quit mulesing, and animal suffering continues unabated. We want to change that now!
We need votes for that
In May 2019, a new government will be elected in Australia. If we get thousands of signatures together, we can pass this petition in summer in the presence of national and international press to the key politicians right in Australia and put real pressure on it.
Help us to stop mulesing and other operations on sheep without painkillers or narcotics in Australia!
We do not want sheep to suffer for wool! We need your vote!
Please support us with your signature and follow our initiative # nopain4sheep on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
the Petition Letter:
Dear Ministers of Agriculture of the Australian State,
with dismay I had to learn that the Australian wool industry has still failed to enforce pain-free alternatives for the mulesing of Merino sheep, such as breeding less wrinkled sheep, which makes mulesing redundant. In addition, mulesing and other surgical procedures such as clutching and castration are still performed on the majority of farms without pain relief management.
Please take action to change the practice of these painful and cruel operations. We don’t want sheep to suffer for wool.
We urge you, as the Australian State Agriculture Ministers in charge, to set new legislation standards: A new deadline to end mulesing in Australia and an immediate ban of all operations on sheep without the administration of pain relief.
Please don’t disappoint our confidence in Australian government and wool growers: We don´t want to wear the wool from screaming sheep on our skin.
We want wool without suffering and pain!
Yours sincerely,
My comment: “Even if sheep do not show their pain, they suffer,” says a Swiss veterinary physician.
“Sheep as mammals have the same pain sensations as humans, so the two large wounds, which are after cutting away the two large skin flaps on the thigh, are very painful. It hurts very much, both at the moment of cutting, but also in the long term, when the wound Healed and often inflamed and swollen, which is sure to cause long-term pain”, he said
Of course, Australian animal tormentors can understand what it’s like to be operated on without anesthetic.
If they experience such cruelty themselves, they will not set a deadline for the abolition of mulesing, it’s tomorrow over!
My best regards, Venus
World Animals Voice 