Tell Australia's New Prime Minister to Stop Lamb Mulesing Mutilations

FROM People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)

Write to Australia's new Prime Minister Julia Gillard and ask her to ban mulesing mutilations. Demand that only effective, humane alternatives be used instead, and urge her to put an end to the cruel live-export industry.

CONTACT

Sign an online petition

And/Or make direct contact:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT Australia 2600
phone (02) 6277 7700
fax (02) 6273 4100
web email form

INFORMATION / TALKING POINTS

Update: UK retailers have bitten back at the Australian Wool Industry (AWI) by rejecting the concept that mulesing is a trivial issue. Despite mounting international pressure to implement humane alternatives, the AWI insists on promoting outdated ones, like painful plastic mulesing "clips", instead of a more humane option.

Sheep strapped down on their backs so layers of their skin can be cut off. This is museling. No anesthetic, no aftercare. Photo from FeelGoodStyle.

This raw and bloody wound was deliberately inflicted upon this merino lamb. This photo was taken by Patty Mark, Animal Liberation Victoria.

Prestigious retailers and fashion designers – including Abercrombie & Fitch, H&M and dozens of other major retailers across Europe and the US – have joined the movement to stop buying wool from lambs who have endured mulesing mutilations. In addition, Australia's own New South Wales Farmers Association has called for an immediate ban on mulesing, and the Western Australia Department of Agriculture has announced that its own research flocks will no longer be mulesed.

Despite this overwhelming trend, the Australian wool industry continues to drag its feet on developing humane alternatives to the mulesing mutilation, instead allowing millions of lambs to be partially flayed alive every year in a cruel attempt to control flystrike.

Rather than focusing its efforts on good animal husbandry and long-term humane solutions like bare-breech breeding, the Australian wool industry wastes time and effort on cheap, cruel flystrike-control methods, like painful plastic mulesing "clips". These so-called "alternatives" are ineffective, inhumane and unacceptable to retailers and consumers around the world. And each year, millions of sheep discarded by the Australian wool industry are crammed onto export ships to be sent to the Middle East. Sheep who survive the terrifying voyage are often dragged off trucks by their ears and legs, tied up and beaten and have their throats slit while they are still conscious.

Thank you for everything you do for animals!