PETA Attacks Australia Wool Industry Again for Mulesing Lambs to Prevent Sheep from Being Eaten Alive

For years, PETA has attacked the Australian wool industry for engaging in mulesing, a procedure in which the skin of Merino lambs (Merino sheep have the best wool) is stripped near the anus so that when the wound heals, it does not have wool or wrinkles. This isn’t to be cruel, but to prevent an awful maggot infestation called fly strike, in which the infected animal is literally eaten alive—see photo at left—sometimes causing death.

The process starts when a particular type of fly lays eggs in areas of the sheep smeared with feces.  These eggs become maggots.  The maggots eat their way into the sheep and feast until they drop back to the ground when they are about to become mature flies.  The mulesing protects the sheep for their entire lives from this awful affliction by making it so that there is no place for the flies to lay their eggs.

Despite the protection mulesing offers sheep, PETA has gone after the practice for years, and despite a previous legal settlement after being sued for leading a boycott, is doing so again. From the story:

ANIMAL rights group PETA have launched a gruesome video campaign warning tourists of the “hidden Australia” showing farmers “mutilating sheep”. The graphic video shows farmers tossing lambs onto a table and sharpening knives before performing a process called mulesing. Played out to the Australian national anthem, the video spoofs the Australian tourism promotion “There’s Nothing Like Australia” and ends with the new slogan, “There’s Nothing Like Australia’s Cruelty to Sheep”. The mulesing process is “a painful procedure in which farmers cut chunks of skin and flesh from sheep’s backsides, often without adequate pain relief, in a crude and cruel attempt to prevent maggot infestation,” PETA says on its website. “We’re asking travellers to help send the message to the Australian government that there is no excuse for allowing mulesing mutilations to continue,” PETA executive vice-president Tracy Reiman said. “By refusing to crack down on the wool industry, Australian leaders have the blood of tens of millions of lambs on their hands.”

First, they don’t take “chunks of flesh,” but pull away the skin, which is painful, but nothing like suffering fly strike!  But here’s the thing: At present, there is no alternative to mulesing in preventing fly strike.  Thus, it is either do the procedure or have the sheep later get eaten alive by maggots.  (Or terminate the OZ wool industry, which is PETA’s actual goal—as PETA even considers sheep shearing to be abuse.)

Pertinently, when PETA and the OZ wool industry reached a legal settlement over PETA’s boycott of Australian wool, the industry agreed to try and find alternatives and implement them “when developed.”  From my book, A Rat is a Pig is a Dog is a Boy:

Finally—and this seems a very big concession on PETA’s part demonstrating clearly that at the time of the settlement there simply was no viable alternative to mulesing to prevent fly strike—the wool industry agreed to “fast track the development of Genetic-Based Mulesing Alternatives and…encourage the adoption of such alternatives when developed.” (My emphasis.) [i]

PETA has thus admitted in a legal settlement that there are “at present” no viable alternatives, and yet it continues its campaign against mulesing as if there the OZ wool industry had any other choice. Four years later, there still aren’t.  PETA has no honor.