Aussie Merino wool farmers fight 'mulesing' & animal activists

09 Jun '05

2 min read

Australia, home of the world's finest Merino wool and the world's largest Merino sheep flock is also, unfortunately, home to a particularly aggressive species of fly, Lucilia Cuprina. Beautiful name, but ugly reputation.

These blowflies specifically target Merino sheep and, without going into gory detail, can very easily lead to the sheep becoming infested and eventually dying a painful death.

To prevent these deaths, Australian farmers remove a strip of skin from the rear end of the lambs, preventing wool from growing and becoming soiled and damp in the flies' favorite target area.

This practice is called 'mulesing' (pronounced mule-zing) after the inventor of the procedure J.H.Mules. Recently an animal rights group targeted the Australian wool industry, calling for an immediate end to mulesing and for people to stop buying Australian Merino wool until this practice is ceased.

This no doubt well-meaning but, in our opinion, misguided demand would have exactly the opposite effect to that presumably intended. It is estimated that without mulesing up to three million Australian sheep would die a slow and agonizing death each year depending on the weather conditions.

Furthermore if any call to stop buying Australian Merino wool proved effective this could lead to grave problems for the Australian wool industry (which provides 65% of the world's fine Merino wool).

Australian woolgrowers pride themselves on having animal welfare and fiber production practices which are equal to any in the world. Over several decades the Australian wool industry has spent millions of dollars on animal welfare research including the search for an effective alternative to mulesing.

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