Time's Up for the Australian Wool Industry
The agreement between PETA and AWGA provided a timetable for phasing out mulesing mutilations (in which skin and flesh is cut from lambs’ backsides with gardening shears) and would have ended exports of live sheep to countries failing to meet Australian animal welfare standards. AWI and others refused to do anything other than criticize the plan during the moratorium, despite the urging of major retailers, including Gap Inc., Liz Claiborne, Lands’ End, L.L. Bean, Eddie Bauer, Jones Apparel Group, Nordstrom, and Ann Taylor, which have all expressed support for the PETA/AWGA agreement and interest in the new brand of wool from farmers who are part of the structured plan to end mulesing and live exports to countries that do not meet Australian domestic animal welfare standards. PETA recently ended its campaign against multinational retailer Benetton when the company wrote to AWGA expressing its support of the agreement and its commitment to purchasing the new wool brand. Under the agreement with AWGA, PETA will continue to encourage retailers to choose the new, more humane wool brand or to buy no wool at all from Australia. A new retail target will also be chosen in the next few weeks. You Can Help!Write to Australian Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran, urging him to put a stop to the cruel practices inflicted on sheep and lambs used for merino wool: The Honourable Peter McGauran, MP Click here for more ways to save the sheep. 
|
Vigorous protests at Australian Embassies in Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Washington, D.C., and São Paulo signaled the end of a 45-day moratorium that PETA had declared on its international boycott of Australian wool. The boycott resumed after two major wool industry groups, Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) and WoolProducers, flatly rejected a landmark