Peta, Four Paws, wool industry on ending mulesing

Market signals show consumers want non-mulesed wool and animal welfare groups are using it to their advantage.

The decades-long campaign against mulesing within Australia’s billion-dollar sheep industry has ramped up a notch this year.

While putting an end to the controversial practice — which involves the removal of skin from the rear of a sheep in an attempt to ward off flystrike — has been an ongoing feature of animal-welfare group campaigns for almost 20 years, and the messages are only getting louder as the industry continues in its quest to find commercial alternatives.

So it begs the question from different parts of the industry, is it time for the industry to end mulesing once and for all?

The concerns about the practice were first raised publicly in the early 2000s with the Australian wool industry making a firm commitment in 2005 to phasing out mulesing by 2010.

But, four years later, despite clothing brand after brand making commitments to boycott Australian wool from mulesed sheep, Australian Wool Innovation abandoned the deadline citing a lack of clear alternatives.

Although the debate about mulesing didn’t go away, and the industry continued to research alternatives, the issue seemed to quieten down until 2019 when David Jones and Country Road announced they would move to use only non-mulesed or ceased-mulesed wool by 2023.

They were the first major Australian retailers to put a time commitment on the use of non-mulesed wool.

A previous Country Road fashion campaign about wool.

Last month, during Australian Fashion Week, animal rights organisation PETA launched a street advertising campaign directing the public to its website WoolFacts.com.

PETA claims the website provides facts about wool and exposes campaigns by the wool industry designed to mislead consumers about its impact on animals and the planet.

WoolProducers Australia chief executive Jo Hall said her organisations had noticed increased activity around mulesing in recent months.

“Animal rights groups always have mulesing on their agenda, however certain groups are actively targeting brands at the moment,” Ms Hall said.

“Wool growers are certainly aware of the increasing scrutiny around mulesing from the supply chain, with many growers considering what this issue will mean for their wool producing business, while other growers are actively transitioning away from the practice,” she said.

“To mules or not mules is an individual enterprise choice, but growers need to avail themselves to all available information on this topic, including market sentiments and customer demands.”

Currently, 15 per cent of Australian wool is declared non-mulesed on the National Wool Declaration and there have been noticeable premiums for Responsible Wool Standard certified wool.

PETA Australia’s campaigns and communications manager Angela Banovic told The Weekly Times they were calling for a total move away from wool (and all animal-derived products) regardless of welfare claims.

“Mulesing is a barbaric ‘solution’ to a man-made problem... Time and time again, we’ve seen sheep let down by industry certifications and assurance schemes,” she said.

US actor Joanna Krupa holds a fake lamb as part of a Peta campaign to end mulesing.

Meanwhile, global animal welfare organisation, Four Paws, which started its active campaign against mulesing in 2018, has been individually targeting brands and has garnered more than 50,000 signatures in its campaign calling for Nike to commit to excluding mulesed wool from its products.

And just last week Four Paws UK was involved in helping to distribute video footage sent to the Collective Fashion Justice, a not-for-profit which exists to create a total ethics fashion system, from a whistleblower which reportedly exposes “brutal mulesing in NSW”. This video has also been uploaded on to the Farm Transparency Project website to assist the Collective Fashion Justice’s campaign to ban mulesing.

Four Paws acknowledged that there had been an increase in activity against mulesing in recent months.

Four Paws wool campaign boss Rebecca Picallo Gil said consumer awareness about mulesing was growing in the fashion and textile markets, and brands were listening to their customers.

“The newest strategy paper from the Australian Wool Innovation aiming to end the industry reliance on mulesing by 2030 give us confidence that industry stakeholders are more ready than ever to transition away from mulesing,” she said.

“With confidence growing in alternatives and robust accreditation schemes now in place, it’s the perfect time for brands and the industry to make the transition away from mulesing.”

Ms Picallo Gil said no brand wanted to be associated with mulesing and people outside of Australia did not understand why such a practice still existed.

“As an animal welfare organisation, our priority is the welfare of sheep, to ensure they are protected from flystrike but also, that they do not have to endure the brutal mulesing practice.”

Four Paws believes the solution is good farm management and transition to more flystrike resistant sheep genetics in order to produce mulesed-free wool.

Australian Wool Growers’ Association chair and wool grower Robert McBride said all farmers knew there was a time limit left for mulesing.

“No farmers willingly undertake mulesing, but so far an alternative hasn’t been found,” he said.

“We understand the concerns the market is showing, and I think if there are financial incentives, that is the market is willing to pay for non-mulesed wool, and research is continued to be undertaken to modify the affect of flystrike, the natural progression for industry is to end mulesing.”

The mulesing debate continues.