http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1363193.htm

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More to come: Activists are planning new anti-live trade campaigns. [File photo] (ABC TV)

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the other thread on this topic:

http://www.care2.com/c2c/groups/disc.html?gpp=3637&pst=174332&archival=

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1380834.htm

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15552840%255E7582,00.html

Wool industry campaign to tackle activists
Simon Canning
June 09, 2005

THE embattled wool industry has rolled the dice on a multi-million-dollar advertising campaign aimed at halting the growing number of US retailers refusing to sell Australian wool products under pressure from animal rights activists.

In an unprecedented step, Australian Wool Innovation today took out double-page ads in several leading US fashion trade magazines, including the influential Women's Wear Daily, pleading with retailers and the fashion industry not to be swayed by the animal rights campaign.

Australian supermodel Kristy Hinze, along with Nicole Trunfio and Heath Townsend, will front the campaign warning that a successful boycott could threaten the future of the world's biggest supplier of merino wool. Australia supplies 65 per cent of the world merino wool market.

The wool industry has been subjected to an ongoing campaign by global animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, targeting the practice of mulesing -- stripping flesh from the back legs of sheep to prevent flystrike -- as well as live sheep exports and shedding sheep to produce superfine wool.

In January, AWI enrolled the services of Lionel Hunt, one of Australia's most acclaimed advertising creative directors, to create the campaign that will run for the next six months at a huge cost to the wool industry.

In the ad, a pouting Hinze is seen with a large blowfly perched on the shoulder of her woollen jacket. Referring to the fly, the headline of the ad reads: "The Australian wool industry has a small problem."

It goes on to accuse PETA of pursuing "misguided demands" that would cause suffering to three million sheep each year through flystrike if mulesing were stopped. PETA claims to have convinced a number of US and British retailers, including Abercrombie & Fitch, Timberland, J. Crew and Nordstrom, to boycott Australian wool products.

Australian Wool and Sheep Industry Taskforce spokesperson David Coombes says the campaign brings wool producers face-to-face with the world's leading retailers.

At the same time AWI is hoping to capitalise on the attention drawn to Australian wool by PETA. "One of the very positive spin-offs from the animal rights campaign against Australian wool is that it has put the industry in front of the world's leading retailers," says Matthew Flugge, AWI general manager corporate affairs.

The campaign breaks as rebel wool growers group the Australian Wool Growers Association revealed that it is travelling to New York this month to meet PETA activists in a bid to bring a halt to the anti-Australian wool campaign.

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Freediver F.
Australian actress backflips on sheep mulesing July 18, 2005 4:54 PM

An Australian actress has changed her mind about calling for a ban on sheep mulesing, claiming she had been mislead by PETA into thinking there were viable alternative treatments:

http://www.abc.net.au/rural/content/2005/s1416534.htm

Anon A.
More like her agent advised her against it     

Freediver F.
Do you have any reason to suspect it isn't a personal stance?     

Anon A.
No I dont-But knowing that celebrities are advised by their agents (and how well known Toni Colette is ) I would say the chances that she was advised against speaking out against something that could be considered as damaging to her career or how she is percieved would be very likely indeed...

Steve B.
Effects...
Regardless of the effects; Sustainability develops viable solutions for common cause.

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I have forgotten the details of what mulesing involves, but my dad was a farmer, and I don't remember him using that particular technique.  Probably some agricultural poison.  As I recall, we used to dip them with some kind of Derris, until the Ministry of Agriculture insisted on us using the same stuff that caused Gulf War syndrome. 

I am fairly certain that Mulesing is a more savage remedy that rivals the problem it is intended to cure. 

PETA seems a bit silly.  It goes riding off in several directions simultaneously when a bit of sensible research and considered thought would be more useful.  Yes, boycott them all.

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http://finance.news.com.au/story/0,10166,16916692-31037,00.html

SCIENTISTS will attempt to breed bare-bum sheep in a $2-million research program that could provide an alternative to a painful animal husbandry practice.

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Australian actress backflips on sheep mulesing

Boycott Benetton and Australian Wool/Sheep Products

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,19074744-23109,00.html

A RADICAL animal rights group has launched a campaign today targeting Australia's livestock exports to the Middle East.

PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, told a press conference Australian cattle and sheep were abused while being transported and at Middle East abattoirs and released footage it said was filmed by its undercover activists in Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar showing the livestock being kicked in the face and stabbed in the eye before being slaughtered in a manner that flouted Muslim halal practices.

The group will be staging demonstrations in Kuwait, Egypt and Qatar next week seeking a ban on the lucrative Australian trade worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

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