13 (Unlucky-for-Sheep) Reasons Not to Buy Wool
Warning: the following images are graphic and will make you never wear wool again:
1. Young lambs’ ears are hole-punched, their tails are chopped off and the males are castrated, all usually without anaesthetics or pain relief.
2. It is considered “normal” in the Australian wool industry for approximately 3 million young lambs to die every spring.
3. Lambs sometimes die because of poor nutrition.
4. This wound is the result of a process called “mulesing”, and it’s standard practice in the industry.
5. During mulesing, workers carve huge strips of skin and flesh off lambs’ backsides.
6. Or workers attach vice-like clamps to their flesh until it dies and sloughs off.
7. Sheep may die from exposure after premature shearing because of the rush to produce more wool.
8. An unnatural overload of wool may also cause animals to die of heat exhaustion during hot months.
9. Eyewitness: “I have seen shearers punch sheep with their shears or their fists until the sheep’s nose bled. I have seen sheep with half their faces shorn off”.
10. During auction, the pens are crowded and sheep may die because of injuries or stress.
11. When sheep age and their wool production declines, they are sent to slaughter.
12. Millions of live sheep are shipped from Australia to the Middle East and North Africa every year. Animals previously used for their wool are among them.
13. The voyage is lethal for many animals – approximately 27,000 sheep died during live export in 2010 alone.
Don’t support an industry that treats sheep as disposable and not as the smart, sensitive, dignified animals they are. Sheep deserve better. Pledge never to wear wool now!
Posted by Jason Baker
Let’s make 2025 a historic year for animals
