Right: A contractor carries out the mulesing procedure on trussed sheep.Further implications
Mulesing has become an extremely vexed issue for the Australian wool industry. The extent to which major wool buyers in key markets have been mobilised against the practice has the potential seriously to undermine wool sales.At the same time it is anything but clear that a majority of Australia's woolgrowers will be in a position to cease mulesing by the end of 2010, let alone immediately, as is now being demanded. Sections of the industry appear dissatisfied with the progress made to this point by Australian Wool Innovations toward finding non-surgical alternatives to mulesing.
The long-range solution would appear to be the development of modified breeds that do not have the same skin-wrinkling and woolly-breech characteristics of most Merinos. Progress has been made in the development of such stock but with only three breeding seasons between now and the end of the 2010 deadline it seems unlikely that a majority of Australian woolgrowers will have the new strains in place by that time.
Chemical, protein-based wool strippers appear to offer some promise, however, their safety and cost-effectiveness have yet to be demonstrated. The wool industry appears to have invested significant time and hope in the development of plastic clips which can achieve a non-surgical mulesing, however, groups such as PETA see these clips as at least as cruel as surgical procedures.
There also appear to be those who believe that the world wool market will give Australia a further reprieve and, so long as painkillers are used, will continue to allow Australian farmers to practise surgical mulesing until viable alternatives have been developed and put into place. The current developments in Europe suggest that no such reprieve will be given.
The response of the New South Wales Farmers Association has been to call for an immediate end to mulesing to stave off threatened boycotts of Australian wool by 60 foreign retailers. The NSW Farmers' Association president, Jock Laurie, has stated, 'When we're in a situation where we've got overseas companies banning purchasing wool from mulesed sheep or banning purchasing wool from people that are still mulesing, then we have got a major problem with the wool market.' It would appear that Australia's woolgrowers may be forced to stop mulesing, ready or not.