Sydney Daily Telegraph (AUS)
Celebrities unite to battle animal activists
By Samantha Williams
June 09, 2008
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23833458-421,00.html

SOME of Australia's biggest names have told an extreme US animal
rights group to back off in its campaign to boycott a national icon.

As People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) convinced
another international retailer to boycott Australian wool that has
been mulesed, leading fashion designer Alex Perry has thrown his
weight behind the wool industry.

"PETA needs to back off," Mr Perry said.

"I understand where they are coming from, there needs to be
alternative to mulesing, but give farmers a chance to develop it."

Mulesing involves cutting the skin and wool from a sheep's backside to
stop blowflies from laying eggs.

Mr Perry, along with rugby league star Nathan Hindmarsh, Myer, country
music singers Gina Jeffreys, Shannon Noll and John Williamson want
PETA to stop attacking wool farmers.

Mr Perry, the judge of Australia's Next Top Model, said executives
sitting in offices overseas like New York should not be making a
decision to boycott goods without all the facts.

He used Australian wool in his recent winter collection and vowed to
continue to use it in the future.

"Wool is a huge export and the rest of the world gets our best, but
PETA goes to the extreme and it doesn't understand how it impacts on
our industry," he said.

The industry - which last year exported 395,000 tonnes of wool valued
at $2.09 billion - has agreed to phase out mulesing by 2010 and is
already using alternatives like anaesthetic and plastic clips.

But the group has not backed off.

Fifth-generation wool grower Jamie Swales, who runs 10,000 sheep near
Armidale, said he was gradually phasing out mulesing.

"We will try and gradually breed out wrinkly backsides by selecting
sheep with less wrinkle, but it takes time, it doesn't happen
overnight," he said. "Farmers don't mules sheep to be cruel, it's the
better option available. Instead of crucifying us, (PETA) should be
working with us to come up with alternatives."

PETA claims it has convinced 34 international companies with more than
3000 stores across the US and Europe to join its campaign. The latest
is German-based companies, Adidas and Clemens and August, which have
followed in the steps of Swedish-based AB Lindex, to black-ban
Australian wool that has been mulesed.

AB Lindex spokeswoman Sara Carlsson confirmed PETA had been "steering"
the company over animal rights issues.

She could not explain what mulesing was or why it was done when The
Daily Telegraph questioned her about the issue

"I have never seen this. I can't explain it to you," she said.

"We are a fashion company not an expert on how to treat animals. We
want to shame Australia into seeing that mulesing ends, it's important
to put pressure of Australian industry to look at other options."

Myer National Corporate Affairs Manager Mitch Catlin yesterday added:
"Myer is throwing its support behind our Aussie farmers, given we are
Australia's largest department store and the home of leading Aussie
designers and fashion."

Excuse me. I can not stomach Michael Moore but didn't he do an piece on Adidas using sweat shops in India while closing their shops in the US of A so they could take advantage of cheap labor??? Now their management is claiming moral ground because they don't use wool from sheep that would have died an awful death if they had not been musled??? What a flippen bunch of hypocrites these people are.



ABC News (Australia)
Adidas announces ban on mulesed wool
Posted Thu Jun 5, 2008 1:00pm AEST
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/05/2266001.htm?section=australia

The multinational sportswear manufacturer adidas has confirmed it will
no longer use wool from sheep that have been mulesed.

Animal welfare groups have been pressuring the company as part of a
campaign against the practice of removing skin from a sheep's backside
to prevent flystrike.

Adidas Australia marketing director Simon Miller says the decision
will have a minimal impact because the company does not use wool in
any of its current products.

"The decision's been made at our global headquarters at Herzogenaurach
in Germany," he said.

"It's in line with adidas global ethical sourcing policy, which covers
the way that we source materials and the way that our products are
manufactured."

NOTE: The author, Tony Burke, is the Australian Minister for
Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

Sydney Daily Telegraph
When animal rights go wrong
By Tony Burke
June 10, 2008 12:00am
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23836724-5001031,00.html

THEY oppose kids keeping goldfish. They oppose people riding horses.
They even oppose blind people using guide dogs.

But who would have thought that some so-called animal rights groups
would end up promoting animal cruelty?

Back off PETA: Sign The Daily Telegraph's petition
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23834935-5001021,00.html

That is exactly what has happened with the People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animal (PETA) protests calling for an immediate ban to
mulesing.

It is not the first time this organisation has been on the absurd side
of an argument.

The reason for mulesing is simple - it prevents the sheep from being
killed by flesh-eating maggots.

Our merino sheep were developed through selective breeding, some time
around 1870 - about the same time the blowfly made it here from South
Africa.

The folds in the breach of the merino's skin together with the
introduction of the blowfly became a lethal combination, creating a
new disease: flystrike, where the folds in the skin become infested
with maggots and the sheep dies a slow and painful death.

That's why mulesing was first introduced. Removing some of the wool
and skin around the breach prevents the sheep being eaten alive.
Farmers don't enjoy doing it, but the alternative is far worse.

The American-based organisation PETA knew that Australian industry had
agreed to a 2010 phase-out of the practice to provide time to develop
alternatives to mulesing.

Some of the alternatives being developed have involved clips, sprays
and selective breeding. But then earlier this year PETA decided to
embark on a campaign which, if successful, will only cause more sheep
to die through flystrike.

They called for mulesing to be banned immediately. Then they went to
different retailers around the world and tried to talk them into
boycotting Australian wool because we had not met our 2010 deadline.

That's right. PETA complained that a 2010 deadline had not been met in
2008. Industry is confident it is on track to have alternatives in
place for 2010. That allows us to work towards improving animal
welfare while still supplying the best quality wool in the world. In
the meantime, extremist organisations should drop their attacks on
Aussie farmers.

If PETA had its way and wool growers stopped mulesing today, we'd see
an immediate rise in the number of sheep dying through flystrike. It's
yet another case of extremists harming the cause they claim to
support.