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From my childhood experiences on a farm in New South Wales, the image of a crying sheep really stands out in my mind. As their protective coats were shedding, I saw them cut and bleed and scream in pain, their eyes widening with fear. Most harvesters are billed by volume, not by the hour, and they run as fast as possible. Resisting sheep are grabbed, kicked, thrown to the floor, stepped on and restrained while they bleat desperately with fear.
I made friends sheep and recognized them as individuals. Some were friendly and outgoing, while others were more reserved and shy. Some were really funny. But the friendship always ended the same – I watched each of them sent to the slaughterhouse when wool production declined. As a child, I was scared and confused by the violence I witnessed and the blood I saw, but I didn’t know how to help.
Now I work for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and spend my days convincing companies that they must stop selling wool and other cruel products. If they don’t listen, PETA can publicly target them, as we are currently doing with Urban Outfitters Inc. brands, including Anthropologie, Free People and Urban Outfitters. Despite overwhelming evidence of brutality by PETA and its international affiliates in investigations 117 sheep farms in six countries – every testimony of gruesome animal cruelty during wool production – Urban Outfitters prefers to capitalize on this suffering.
The latest PETA revelation video shows workers in Australia (the world’s largest wool exporter) brutally slapping delicate sheep in the face and legs in the back and abdomen. Workers leave them with deep cuts and gaping wounds. One sheep can be seen writhing in pain as a shearing roughly sews up a bloody wound with an apparently blunt needle and thread without any pain reliever. A sheep sheared during labor suffered from vaginal prolapse the size of a melon. The man clipping her cut the exposed fabric with his sharp metal clippers and then used her woolly back to wipe his own blood off the floor. An eyewitness also heard officers talk about haircuts that broke a lamb’s leg and poked the sheep in the eyes. The shearing, still working as a team, reportedly bit off the ear of one sheep in anger.
This violence is not abnormal. PETA is responsible for the first ever charges against wool workers for mistreating sheep – six shearers were charged with 70 counts cruelty to animals. How many more times does PETA and its affiliates have to send investigators to expose the abuse of sheep before people stop saying wool is “just a shearing”?
Wool is harmful to the environment. Sheep produce massive amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide. The Higg Sustainability Index data show that wool has a much greater climate impact than even synthetic materials and significantly stronger than natural vegan materials such as tencel, hemp, organic cotton and linen.
With so many environmentally friendly materials available for animals, there is no reason to use and kill animals to make clothes. I will not shop at Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, or Free People as long as they support and fund violence. I hope you will join me.
Sarah Britt – Corporate Responsibility Officer, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), 501 Front Street, Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.
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