And that would be Australian Wool Innovation (AWI), which is (surprise, surprise) reneging on its promise to end mulesing by 2010.

AWI will have had six years to stop a horrific practice that no other country engages in. New Zealand stopped the mulesing mutilation almost 10 years ago. If AWI does not meet the 2010 deadline, retailers around the world will take action by sourcing wool elsewhere.

AWI has only itself to blame for losing the world market by trying to delay the inevitable. Of course we were spot-on: AWI has chosen not to live up to its word and is still stuck in the 1930s. Australian wool is no longer the standard—it is now a symbol of the way greedy people have behaved by treating thinking, feeling animals as if they were inanimate commodities.

Despite the fact that leading retailers across Europe and North America are refusing to purchase wool from mulesed lambs, the Australian wool industry's most recent ludicrous scheme is to adopt an equally cruel and painful procedure called "clip mulesing," in which clips are attached to the folded skin on lambs' backsides, causing the skin to rot and fall off. Clips are not an alternative to the mulesing mutilation; they are simply a less bloody form of it. We are pleased, however, to see that the wool industry has finally responded to the complaints of dozens of retailers around the world who want to buy only wool from sheep who were not mulesed (not even with clips) and who have asked that wool from clip-mulesed sheep be identified on a mulesing declaration form.

As the Australian Weekly Times wrote, "For an organisation that purports to be a research and marketing body, the decision by Australian Wool Innovation to abandon the mulesing deadline is reckless, unwanted and unhelpful." This shows that your voices—and those of retailers who are demanding that Australia join the 21st century and stop mutilating lambs—are being heard in Australia.

Please help PETA continue to pressure the Australian government to do the right thing by taking a few short moments to write to Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd, to demand that mulesing be outlawed now. And, if you still wear animals even when so many wonderful alternatives exist, ask yourself why.

Posted by Tracy Reiman

theage / CC

The pressure is on for the Australian wool industry! Jiangsu Sunshine Group, a $1.8 billion Chinese textile company, is the world's largest buyer of Australian wool—and it's calling on the Aussie wool industry put an end to mulesing.

The mulesing mutilation is the practice of slicing chunks of flesh from around sheep's tails—without any pain relief—to prevent "flystrike" (i.e., to prevent sheep from being eaten alive by maggots in the folds of flesh on their rump). Flystrike is awful, of course, but there are plenty of humane alternatives to mutilation for flystrike prevention that are in use by many wool farmers. In fact, New Zealand has done away with mulesing altogether!

Sunshine's action will hopefully force folks like Australian Wool Innovation Chair Wal Merriman to abandon this cruel practice once and for all. In a recent article, Merriman thumbed his nose at retailers and consumers by admitting that he will continue to mules his sheep, despite the fact that a growing list of retailers, including H&M, Perry Ellis, Adidas, and many others, want only nonmulesed wool.

Sunshine said in its letter to the Federation of Australian Wool Organisations: "In the last three years, increasing requests have been made from our major international customers to provide product as made from non-mulesed Australian wool due to the strong pressure of the animal liberation movement."

In other words, keep those cards and letters coming!

Posted by Jeff Mackey

Well, despite the occasional offhand remark I may have made about lawyers over the past few months, it turns out our legal counsel really are quite spectacular! And this victory feels particularly good, since it shows that no matter how influential or rich or well-connected the corporation or—as in this case—entire industry that we go up against, we will not be intimidated, and we will not give up our mission of ending animal abuse and torture anywhere we find it, and we will win! This week, Australian Wool Innovation (AWI), a trade group representing the Australian wool industry, abandoned the lawsuit they have been pushing for more than two years against PETA's boycott of Australian wool. AWI has pumped millions of dollars into this lawsuit, and this development is a big victory both for free speech and for animals. Here's what PETA President Ingrid Newkirk had to say:

"Our message is that when animal abusers sue PETA, it's at their own peril. AWI has wasted millions of dollars of woolgrowers' money, only to find that PETA's call for a boycott of Australian wool is going at full throttle as long as lambs have chunks of their rumps cut off with shears and� sheep are herded onto export death ships."

In addition to withdrawing the lawsuit, AWI has had to agree to fast-track the development of genetic alternatives to the cruel mutilation that is one major cause of our boycott. This isn't enough in itself for us to end our demonstrations against Australian wool, but it's good news for the sheep, and it's an encouraging sign that the industry itself is starting to listen to the outrage of consumers over its cruel practices. To learn the full story and to help with our campaign, please click here. And for more on why we launched this boycott in the first place, check out the video below.