H&M, Perry Ellis, Adidas, and Others Boycott Mulesed Wool

Major international retailers—including H&M, Perry Ellis, Adidas, and dozens of other major retailers—have announced that they will boycott mulesed wool. These companies made their decisions despite the Australian wool industry's efforts to placate retailers and consumers by phasing out the conventional mulesing mutilation in favor of a new mulesing mutilation, "clip mulesing," in which farmers clip clamps onto lambs' skin so tightly that the skin dies and falls off.

Australian Wool Innovation (AWI), an Australian wool-industry trade group, seems to have hoped that since clip mulesing is less bloody, retailers might overlook its obvious problems. AWI director Chris Abell went so far as to say, "There's a very big difference, there's no bloody back end of the animal to display to shock the retailers with a clip." But a lack of blood does not make a procedure painless. Animal welfare experts have condemned clip mulesing as painful and inhumane.

Retailers are now responding to clip mulesing mutilations the same way that they did to traditional mulesing mutilations when PETA exposed the cruel practice in 2004. Since February 2008, H&M, Perry Ellis, German-based C&A, major fashion house HUGO BOSS, sporting goods giant Adidas, and numerous other companies have pledged to move away from or outright ban wool from mulesed lambs, including lambs mutilated using clips.

While many Australian woolgrowers have recognized and taken advantage of the many alternatives to mulesing mutilations—including simply paying more attention to individual animals or introducing breeds that don't have wrinkly skin (called "bare-breeched" sheep) and thus don't risk getting flystrike—AWI insists on promoting outdated, cruel mulesing mutilations, which have no place in a modern world. As a result, more than 85 per cent of Australian farmers are not even exploring the easiest and most effective alternative to mulesing mutilations: bare-breeched sheep.

Please urge Australia's prime minister to outlaw mulesing mutilations now and save millions of Australian sheep every year from needless suffering.