Here’s the big news I was hinting at in the last post: H&M, which recently pledged to stop buying wool from Australian sources that still use the mulesing mutilation (essentially, slicing up sheep’s backsides), has set off a chain reaction throughout Europe: Following H&M’s announcement, 17 other major Swedish retailers have made the same pledge, and a coalition of 31 European retailers have announced that they are considering or have decided to stop using wool from mulesed lambs. On top of all this, 10 Danish retailers have withdrawn their support of mulesing, and the Western Australia Department of Agriculture has announced that it will stop mulesing.

What does this all add up to? The total amount of cancelled orders of Aussie wool from Europe as a result of these decisions comes to 550,000 bales of wool. This is a big wakeup call to Aussie wool farmers who continue to mutilate lambs, and a strong message to wool industry executives that their continued refusal to adopt humane practices will directly affect their bottom line.

For more information on the fallout from this recent outcry against the Australian wool industry, here’s the letter that PETA President Ingrid Newkirk sent to Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last week:

This one made me laugh out loud.

Click for a larger version

To check out the archives of past strips, click here.

“Lucy” the sheep is at it again. Today, she joined Aussie Prime Minister John Howard on his morning walk in Sydney, and she’ll be making regular appearances again soon. I mean really, how can Australian politicians ignore the issues of mulesing and live export when there’s an activist in a giant sheep costume everywhere they go? Umm, OK, don’t answer that.

“Lucy” the sheep

And here’s a story about the newly formed PETA Australia. Yes, I said PETA Australia! More news on that front soon . . .

News flash! New Zealand has just banned the live export of animals from the country. This announcement comes only a few months after New Zealand farmers announced that they were ending the archaic practice of mulesing, which is a procedure where large chunks of flesh are cut from sheep’s hind quarters with no painkillers to prevent flies from laying eggs in their wrinkly skin. Kudos to New Zealand for taking the lead on both of these issues and setting the wool industry animal welfare bar a little bit higher.

Now it’s time for the Australian wool industry to pull its head out of the sand and get with the program. If New Zealand can make these two important changes in its entire wool industry in a matter of months, certainly Australia can follow suit. You can help make that happen by clicking here.

If you’re new to the blog or to this issue, there is a great overview of both mulesing and live export here.

I think it may be time for a Gladiator, Quills, and Walk the Line marathon this weekend, because two-time Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix has taken time away from promoting his upcoming films We Own the Night and Reservation Road to write to Australian Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran about the cruel treatment of sheep by the Australian wool industry.

Phoenix focused his letter on the two worst abuses sheep face in Australia: mulesing and live export. In case you’re not familiar with these two terms, here’s a quick explanation. Mulesing is a painful procedure in which gardening shears are used to cut skin and flesh from lambs' backsides without any painkillers. It is a crude and cheap effort to reduce maggot infestation, even though humane methods exist. Every year, millions of Australian sheep discarded by the wool industry are shipped to the Middle East and North Africa. They are crammed onto multi-tiered ships where they suffer amid the waste of thousands of other animals for weeks on end. Many suffer and die from smothering, starvation, heatstroke, injuries and disease. Each year, tens of thousands of animals die en route—almost 40,000 sheep died in 2005 alone.

Check out Phoenix’s full letter here, and join him in writing Peter McGauran here.

This story was being considered for a web feature, but I grabbed it for the blog because I found it to be incredibly moving. Please share Marcie’s story with your friends and family who still wear wool . . .

When a PETA member found Marcie languishing at a decrepit Colorado farm, she was sick, frightened, and going blind. She had been used as a breeding machine her entire life, and had endured the anguish of having all of her babies taken away as soon as they were born, sometimes even to be killed right in front of her.

After the farmer agreed to relinquish Marcie, she was taken to the Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary, a refuge for abused and neglected animals. There, for the first time in her life, Marcie knew kindness instead of cruelty. She was given wholesome and plentiful food and the veterinary care she so desperately needed. But Marcie, shell-shocked and traumatized by her past, never fully recovered.

Despite the best of care, the damage was done: Marcie lost her sight within a year of her rescue. She was terrified of people—it was a year before shelter staff could even touch her—so she sought comfort and security among the goats at the sanctuary. In an effort to “hide,” Marcie camouflaged herself in the resident goat herd, forging a fast friendship with her bovid cousins.

In her final years, Marcie found contentment and peace. But for millions of sheep farmed for their wool, there is no happy ending.

In Australia, where most of the world’s wool comes from, the misery for sheep begins when they are only weeks old. In a misguided attempt to prevent maggot infestation, or flystrike, farmers carve huge chunks of skin from the backsides of millions of lambs a year—without any pain relief—in a crude mutilation called mulesing.

For 200 years, Australian farmers have intentionally bred, and continue to breed, merino sheep who have extra wrinkly skin because more skin means more wool and more profits. This extra skin collects moisture, urine and feces and attracts blowflies which lay their eggs in the wrinkly folds of skin. The hatched maggots can eat the sheep alive. Rather than spend the extra time and money on effective and humane methods to prevent flystrike, many farmers choose to simply cut the wrinkly skin off from the backside of lambs because it is cheaper and easier than caring for them properly.

Shearing is also a painful, frightening ordeal. Shearers are usually paid by volume, not by the hour, so they work as quickly as possible, leaving sheep bruised and bleeding. The untreated wounds can attract flies and become infected. Terrified sheep who don’t “cooperate” are often beaten and kicked into submission. When they are no longer profitable for their wool, Australian sheep are often shipped thousands of miles to the Middle East, where they are dragged off trucks by their ears and legs, kicked in the face, and have their throats slit while they are still conscious.

So, what can you do? Please, don’t ever buy any wool. Choose cotton, acrylic, polyester fleece, and other durable, stylish, and warm fabrics. Find sources of animal-friendly clothing at the PETA Mall and in our cruelty-free clothing guide. And click here for more ways to help.

As promised, here’s this week’s DeFlocked comic by Jeff Corriveau. I love it.

Click for a larger version

Check out last week’s comic here, and click here to learn all about the world of DeFlocked.

Update: Amusing as it is, it looks like this story may not have been entirely factual. Makes me feel a bit sheepish. Thanks to Amy and Canaduck for pointing that out!

Apparently, thousands of rich Japanese women were conned into buying lambs as pets, believing them to be super valuable miniature poodles. No, I’m not kidding. This insane scam was brought to light when Japanese movie star Maiko Kawakami complained on a talk show that her new poodle refused to bark or eat dog food. Another couple found out the truth when their groomer told them that she couldn’t cut the “poodle’s” nails, umm, because they were hooves! As funny as these people’s clueless-ness is, the sad part is that the aftermath of this scam is that hundreds or thousands of sheep have been left to God only knows what fate.

Sheep	Poodle

It reminds me of the way people in this country jump on the bandwagon and buy purebred puppies because they match the drapes in their new house, because they’re trying to make their lives look like a picture from an LL Bean catalog or because the latest Disney movie makes the kids beg for one. Then, a few months later after the novelty has worn off, the dogs wind up in shelters, or worse, on the street. This whole poodle thing is really no less absurd than the dalmatian craze that swept the US after the 101 Dalmatians sequel came out a few years ago and the clown fish craze after Finding Nemo.

It’s funny that this story came up now, as next week is national Be Kind to Animals Week, and to celebrate we’ll be highlighting one simple thing per day we can all do to make the lives of our own companion animals better and to help animals nationwide. But I want to start a little early. Let’s all agree not to buy sheep as house pets. If we can all agree to do that, I think we’re on the right track . . . OK, yes, now I’m kidding.

With The Pretenders set to play Sydney, Chrissie Hynde made a quick stop to unveil a new PETA ad designed to draw attention to a gruesome procedure that Australian lambs are subjected to. The launch comes just a month after Pink narrated our video exposé of the wool industry. This ad isn't exactly PETA's most lighthearted work, but the procedure, which involves an Australian farmer, a frightened lamb, and a pair of gardening shears, doesn't really allow for a whole lot of levity. Chrissie, whose tireless dedication to helping animals is nothing short of heroic, unveiled the ad at the Sydney Opera House today. Incidentally, this is why I don't wear wool.

There's been a whole lot of controversy recently about our campaign against some lethal experiments conducted at two Oregon universities on a number of out-of-the-closet ovine Oregonians. The experiments, which involve attempting to change the sexual orientation of sheep before dissecting their brains, raise a number of complex ethical issues—as well as some really basic ones like "don't torture sheep." Here to explain exactly where we stand on the issue is PETA's own brilliant Research Associate, Shalin Gala, with an open letter in response to the experiments:

PETA's Open Letter in Response to OSU and OHSU's ‘Gay Sheep’ Experiments

After being outed by PETA for their cruel and deadly hormone-altering tests on gay sheep, experimenters continue to mislead the public as to the troubling implications of their work.

Experimenters Charles Roselli of Oregon State University (OHSU) and Fred Stormshak of Oregon Health and Science University (OSU) have failed to address ethical issues pertaining to their deadly hormone-altering tests on gay sheep and the tests' implications for humans. PETA will continue to scrutinize these and any other experiments to ensure that both animal and human interests are protected and represented. ... [More]