Four knitting & yarn stores announce not to buy Australian merino wool
10 Jun '05
2 min read
After reviewing video footage showing the stunningly cruel treatment of sheep at the hands of the Australian wool industry, four New York-area knitting and yarn stores have announced that they will no longer buy Australian merino wool.
The stores are Downtown Yarns in Manhattan's East Village, Knit Knacks in Wantaugh, Knitting Nation in Nyack, and Plainview-based Yarn Garden, which told PETA, "We have always carried Australian merino wool in the past. We, the owners of the shop, will not purchase this product from any of our companies until the practice of 'mulesing' and live exports has ended."
Mulesing is a painful mutilation in which Australian farmers use gardening shears to slice chunks of skin and flesh from lambs' backsides—without any painkillers—in a crude attempt to reduce maggot infestation, even though humane control methods exist.
Every year, millions of Australian sheep are shipped on long voyages to the Middle East in open-decked ships through all weather extremes, mired in their own waste.
Sick and injured sheep are thrown overboard to the sharks or ground up alive in mincing machines. When the survivors reach the Middle East, their throats are slit while they are still conscious.
The four businesses join a growing list of retailers and fashion designers—including Abercrombie & Fitch, J.Crew, Timberland, and Limited Brands in the U.S. and New Look and George in the U.K.—that have joined the international boycott of Australian wool.
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