Video clip at right: ABC TV's 7.30 Report on allegations of "bribery" of an animal rights activist; caution: this clip contains short sequences showing the mulesing procedure. If you cannot see this clip, it will be because YouTube is blocked by your network. To view the clip, access from home or from a public library, or from another network which allows YouTube clips.
Introduction to the media issue
2008/12: Animal welfare: should Australian farmers cease mulesing immediately?
What they said ...
'It is similar to flaying and the pain will be experienced for weeks and months afterwards. Mulesing does not free the sheep from blowfly strike, but proper husbandry practices, including close inspection of sheep, will reduce and virtually eliminate flystrike'
Dr John Auty, a veterinarian with experience in the meat and sheep trade
'Cruelty is when pain is inflicted deliberately for no reason, not when you are setting out to prevent something more cruel happening. It is cruelty not to mules and have sheep die from flystrike'
Paul Michelmore, Yorke Peninsula shearing contractor
The issue at a glance
In February 2008 Sweden and Norway's agriculture ministers condemned Australia's practice of mulesing sheep to prevent flystrike. At the same time a bribery scandal erupted in Sweden after an Australian wool industry lobbyist was filmed offering a trip to Australia to a mulesing critic.
The result has been a groundswell of criticism of the Australian wool industry among many of its European customers and a renewal of criticism within the United States market. This response has been encouraged by a number of animal rights groups, including PETA.
In 2004, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), a US-based animal rights group, had mounted a campaign to have American importers ban Australian wool until the Australian industry ceased mulesing.
The result was a compromise in which Australian woolgrowers signed a compact which had them agree to phase out mulesing by the end of 2010 and to use painkillers when mulesing in the interim. The industry understood that PETA would cease protesting against the manner in which its livestock were treated until that time. However, this does not appear to have been PETA's understanding. The organisation has not been satisfied with the progress made to this point and is demanding that mulesing be ended immediately.
The threatened loss of markets has seen a significant number of Australian woolgrowers commit to stopping mulesing straight away. Others, however, consider such undertakings premature, believing there are currently no viable alternatives to mulesing as a means of controlling flystrike.