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2008/12: Animal welfare: should Australian farmers cease mulesing immediately?<BR>

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.

Background
(The following background information has been drawn from two Internet sources, each essentially neutral.)

VetMed Resource is a site designed to provide veterinarians and others working in animal health with access to the world's largest bibliographic database on veterinary medicine, the Veterinary Science Database, and a range of resources including review articles, databases, and news.
VetMed's treatment of mulesing can be found at http://www.cababstractsplus.org/veterinarymedicine/articles.asp?ArticleID=11790&action=display&openMenu=relatedItems&Year=2005

Wikipedia's entry on mulesing can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulesing

For further discussion of the issue from the two opposing perspectives see:

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has a section of its internet site dealing with the treatment of sheep within the Australian wool industry. It deals specifically with mulesing and live sheep exports. These pages can be accessed through http://www.savethesheep.com/

The Wool is Best internet site is produced by The Australian Wool and Sheep Industry Taskforce. It has a subsection of its site that specifically argues against the claims made by PETA and defends the use of mulesing. These arguments can be found at http://www.woolisbest.com/animal_welfare/mulesing/index.html )

Mulesing is a procedure carried out on Merino sheep in order to prevent attack by flies. Merino sheep are particularly susceptible to flystrike as they have folds of skin around the perineum (the hairless area under the tail) which can become soiled by urine and faeces. Flies, particularly the Australian blowfly, are attracted to wool that is moist due to such contamination. The blowfly lays its eggs in the moist wool and the flesh-eating larvae can create significant wounds, causing the sheep considerable pain, stress, suffering and often, a slow death.
The Mules procedure, or mulesing, involves the removal of excess loose skin from either side of the crutch (or breech) of a sheep to reduce the incidence of blowfly strike. The wooled skin immediately adjacent to the naturally hairless skin above and on either side of the anus is removed.
While the lamb is under restraint (typically in a marking cradle), the wrinkled skin in the animal's breech (rump area) is cut away from the perennial region down to the top of the hind limbs. Originally, the procedure was performed with modified wool-trimming metal shears, however there are now similar metal shears designed specifically for mulesing. In addition, the tail is docked and the remaining stump is sometimes skinned. The resultant scars extend the area of wool-less skin so that faecal and urine soaked dags (lumps of matted wool and faeces) cannot accumulate at these sites. Consequently the risk of breech flystrike is significantly reduced.
For young lambs of about two months it appears to take some two months before the wound is largely healed. Current codes of practice ban mulesing for sheep over 12 months of age. Standard practice is to do this operation simultaneously with other procedures such as ear marking, tail docking, and vaccination.
The climatic conditions in South Australia and the very extensive farming systems used by sheep farmers mean that flystrike can be a significant problem. Blowfly strike is viewed as the major pest control problem confronting the Australian wool industry with average annual losses in the order of $150 million. Mulesing and other interventions, such as tail docking and crutching, are seen as suitable procedures to reduce flystrike. In Australia, 60-70% of the national Merino flock is mulesed.

History
The mulesing technique was developed as the result of a competition run in Australia in 1930. A prize was offered for the person who could find an answer to breech flystrike and the winner was John. H. Mules of South Australia for his method of skin removal. The practice of mulesing was not given formal approval until 1939.
Originally, mulesing was carried out on sheep after they were weaned because it was considered too rigorous a procedure to perform on lambs. However, lambs appear to cope with the procedure better than older sheep as the actual area of skin fold removed on young lambs is quite small, and they are protected for an extra year as well.

Internet information
Please note: the newspaper sources for this issue are largely confined to news reports. The opinion pieces necessary for VCE English Unit 3 Language Analysis have been drawn from the Internet. They come from Australian sites and were posted on or after September 1, 2008.

On September 24, 2007, 'The Voice of the Australian Woolgrower', the newsletter produced by the Australian Woolgrowers' Association (AWGA), published a letter titled, 'Time for Mulesing Commonsense'. The letter was written by Martin Oppenheimer, chairman of the AWGA. The letter argues that the Australian wool industry has moved toward achieving its 2010 compact with PETA.
The full text of the letter can be found at http://www.australianwoolgrowers.com.au/news2007/news240907a.html

On October 18/10/07 radio commentator Alan Jones expressed his views on PETA's campaign against mulesing and Australian woolgrowers who use the procedure. Alan Jones is highly critical of PETA.
Jones' comments can be found at http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2007/10/18/Wool_producers_suffer_enough_without_PETAs_stupidity

On December 7, 2007, Animal Liberation Australia issued a media release criticising the proposed use of plastic clips to cause non-surgical mulesing. The group believe this procedure also causes unacceptable levels of distress to the lambs. The full text of the media release can be found at http://www.animal-lib.org.au/mediareleases/041207%20mulesing%20clips.doc

On December 24, 2007, The Sydney Morning Herald published a letter from Christine Townend, the founder of Animal Liberation. The letter titled, 'Progress on mulesing shows there is no excuse for cruelty', is a criticism of the current mulesing procedures and suggests alternatives are available. The full text can be found at http://www.smh.com.au/news/letters/progress-on-mulesing-shows-there-is-no-excuse-for-cruelty/2007/12/23/1198344877124.html

On March 10, 2008, the New South Wales Minister for Primary Industries, said that moves to stop mulesing immediately in his state were premature. His views were put in an article titled 'Suggestion to stop mulesing too hasty: Macdonald' which was published in the Farmonline journal, 'The Land'. The full text of the article can be found at http://theland.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/livestock/sheep/suggestion-to-stop-mulesing-too-hasty-macdonald/82107.aspx

On March 28, 2008, Opinion Online, an Internet comment site, published an opinion piece titled, 'www.BoycottSweden.com'. The piece was written by Jonathan J. Ariel, an economist and financial analyst.
Ariel argues that the Swedish opposition to mulesing is misinformed and suggests a degree of economic self-interest in the Swedish boycott of Australian wool. The full text of the comment can be found at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7164&page=1

In March 2008, the animal welfare group, Animals Australia, gave an overview of the mulesing issue. Though it contained many facts the treatment is essentially critical of mulesing. The treatment can be found at http://www.animalsaustralia.org/issues/mulesing.php

On April 4, 2008, Tamworth's 'Northern Daily Leader' newspaper published a letter to the editor titled, 'So long, Ian. Go out to pasture'. The letter is written by Ingrid E Newkirk, the President of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Norfolk, Virginia, USA.
The letter is a criticism of former Liberal politician and federal Minister for Defence and former president of the National Farmers' Federation, Ian McLachlan. The letter criticises McLachlan's support of mulesing and suggests his own extensive breeding stocks may have influenced his position on developing sheep with wool-free breeches.
The full text of this letter can be found at http://tamworth.yourguide.com.au/news/opinion/opinion/so-long-ian-go-out-to-pasture/1216476.html

Arguments in favour of stopping mulesing immediately
1. The pain caused by mulesing constitutes cruelty to animals
Animal activists and others have repeatedly claimed that mulesing inflicts great pain on the animals treated in this manner. As such, mulesing has been condemned as cruel. Dr John Auty, a veterinarian with experience in the meat and sheep trade, has said of mulesing, '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.'
Studies have demonstrated that lambs show increased plasma cortisol and beta-endorphin levels after mulesing. Plasma cortisol and beta-endorphin are hormones produced in response to pain. Electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings from sheep undergoing various procedures such as castration, shearing, handling and mulesing have shown that mulesing provoked a similar response to that of inducing lameness by formalin injection. Animals have demonstrated aversion responses to the operators who have conducted the mulesing procedure, that is, they demonstrate an enduring fear reaction to the person who performed the procedure on them. Stress-related behaviour in mulesed lambs has been observed for up to 113 days after the procedure was performed.

2. The side effects of mulesing can be extremely injurious
It has been claimed that mulesing is not necessarily effective in preventing flystrike and further that this supposed 'treatment' carries with it a number of risks to the animals' health.
Many sheep are said to die as a result of flystrike actually promoted by mulesing. Unless the woolgrower is extremely careful flies will actually lay their eggs in the open wounds that result from mulesing. When this happens the maggot infestations that result cause pain and often death to animals that have already endured the pain of a procedure supposed to protect them. Research has shown that 7- to 9-day-old wounds, regardless of the wound treatment, were highly attractive egg laying sites for blowflies. Further, numbers of young sheep die through tetanus, blood loss, and stress as a result of mulesing.
There is also evidence that mulesing of lambs may increase the prevalence of arthritis. A case-control study conducted on groups of lambs from 122 Western Australian sheep flocks showed that mulesing and shearing lambs increased the odds of high prevalence of arthritis by 7 and 4.3 times respectively compared to unmarked and unshorn lambs.
The radical mules procedure removes more skin and leads to a shorter tail. A problem with the radical mules operation is that after the skin heals, extra stretching could occur at the sides of the vulva in female sheep. This causes it to be pulled partially open, exposing tender tissue to ultraviolet light and resulting in an increase in incidence of vulval cancer. As short tails were generally a feature of the radical mules operation, the remaining tail was not long enough to shade the vulva, exacerbating the cancer problem. As a result of these problems the radical mules procedure is no longer favoured. However, conventional mulesing, which leaves a longer stripped tail also has associated problems as the bare tail is highly susceptible to continuous sunburn. This can lead to skin cancer.

3. There are other means of controlling flystrike
Animal activists tend to stress better animal husbandry and different breeding practices as a solution to the mulesing problem.
Shearing the breech area of sheep, a procedure known as crutching, can help prevent flystrike. By removing the wool that is prone to contamination with faeces and urine, the incidence of blowfly attack can be reduced. Shearing and crutching, if timed correctly to coincide with the worst periods of blowfly activity, can reduce the likelihood of flystrike.
There has also been effective work done to breed types of Merino that are less susceptible to flystrike. There is considerable evidence that some sheep have an increased genetic resistance to flystrike. Genetic variation has been observed between, and within, different Merino strains and bloodlines in their resistance to fly strike. This is brought about by variation in the fleece and skin characteristics and in the immune system. These factors influence the effect of moisture and pathogens in the development of fleece rot and body strike. With modern molecular biology techniques, research is focussed on finding the genes responsible for improved resistance to flystrike. Producers are encouraged to exclude or cull flystrike affected animals from the breeding flock and select on the basis of resistance to fleece rot.
There are also strains of Merino with bare breeches and different skin and wool properties that again far less likely to suffer from flystrike. An Australian company, SRS, is developing a strain of Merino that does not need mulesing, tail docking or crutching. The breeding system used by the company is based on selection of animals for high levels of fibre density and fibre length. According to the Managing Director of the company, Dr Jim Watts, sheep with these traits are plain-bodied and have thin, loose skins that are completely free of skin wrinkle. The company claims that several of their Merino flocks are producing a considerable number of ewes and rams with wool-less breeches.
There has also been extensive research into a variety of chemical means of permanently removing wool and skin from the sheep's breech. One method, known as 'Skintraction' uses a chemical common in domestic shampoo and similar to that used in the treatment of varicose veins in human medicine.
A recent University study has shown that once inside a layer of skin, the active ingredient immediately destroys nerve bundles. It rapidly and painlessly pulls apart the protein structure that makes up the skin, nerves and blood vessels in the local area around the treated site. Research over the last two years has indicated that the active constituent effectively causes skin death around the selected area, without spreading into adjacent areas. Like a graze on human skin, the new layer grows, but, in this case, the skin area contracts. That stretches the neighbouring area of skin as occurs with conventional mulesing, but without discomfort to the animal.
This research presents an alternative to surgical mulesing which has the potential to deliver a distress-free, practical and safe modified mules for less than $1 a head, according to its developers.

4. Some farmers are already adopting alternatives to mulesing
Currently 11.5% of Australia's national wool clip comes from sheep that have not been mulesed. A small group of woolgrowers have looked to genetic selection as a way of ending the need for mulesing. These woolgrowers began this practice four years ago, after United States animal rights activists, including PETA, started targeting farmers who mulesed.
The woolgrowers who have stopped mulesing use a multi-purpose merino sheep bred for less wrinkly rears that are not as susceptible to the ravages of blowflies.
Victorian woolgrower, Ben Duxon, has stated, 'To us, the issue is dead and buried because we know there is an industry out there that can survive without mulesing ... It's hard because the industry has been so reliant on mulesing for so long, but we just have to get on the front foot and supply what they demand over there.'

5. Some major consumers will cease to buy Australian wool if mulesing continues
There is large scale commercial pressure on Australian woolgrowers to cease mulesing. A number of major wool buyers have indicated they will cease to purchase the Australian product if mulesing continues.
About 50 European retailers, including Swedish giant H&M, have indicated that they will not purchase Australian wool while mulesing is practised. The same policy is being adopted by US chains Timberland and Abercrombie & Fitch.
In the wake of what appears to have been an attempt to bribe a animal activist with a free trip to Australia apparently made by a representative of Australian Wool Innovations, nineteen large clothing retailers in Sweden are banning Australian Wool products and the Swedish Minister for Agriculture, Eskil Erlandsson, urged consumers to boycott it. He has also indicated he intends to raise the issue with the European Union Commission.
On March 28, 2008, it was announced that a major British clothing retailer, Matalan, had joined the growing international corporate boycott of Australian wool.
Matalan's technical and corporate purchasing director, David Mellett, stated, '(We have) instructed our suppliers that they must not source Australian merino wool for any future orders (and) we will now include this as part of our auditing process.'
Australia's wool exports to the European Union are currently worth some $370 million annually.
The problem also exists among other overseas markets for Australian wool. The chief executive of Australian Wool Innovations, Craig Welsh, has stated, 'The manufacturers and retailers who I have been meeting throughout India, Hong Kong and China are saying that they need confidence from the Australian wool industry that surgical mulesing will be phased out by 2010.
The fact is that the Australian wool industry is facing increasing retailer and consumer demand for wool from non-mulesed Merino sheep.'
The effect of this consumer pressure is that many woolgrowers are now of the view that mulesing that must be stopped immediately because of the damage the practice is doing to Australia's wool markets. The New South Wales Farmers Association has called 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. And that we cannot afford at the moment.' Further the West Australian Department of Agriculture has announced it would end mulesing on its research stations by early April, 2008.

Arguments against stopping mulesing immediately
1. Fly strike is a more injurious condition than anything associated with mulesing
Those who support mulesing claim that whatever the pain associated with mulesing it is far less than that caused by flystrike.
According to Yorke Peninsula shearing contractor Paul Michelmore, mulesing is an absolute necessity as a means of preventing flystrike. Mr Michelmore has stated, 'There is nothing worse or more cruel than to see a sheep with flystrike. They die a slow and cruel death.
Mulesing is done only once and, with regular crutching, the sheep will be pretty right. Sheep which haven't been mulesed are also more difficult to crutch because of the skin wrinkles and it is difficult not to prick them or stab then in the behind.
No farmer thinks "I want to be cruel to my sheep today so I think I will get them in and cut some arses".
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.'
Wesley J Smith of National Review Online has argued similarly, 'Australia is home to a nasty species of fly (the blowfly) that reproduces by laying eggs in wet wool, particularly around wounds or in healthy but damp areas soiled by feces and urine. When the eggs hatch, the maggots literally eat into the flesh of the sheep and feed for several days - a condition known as "flystrike" - before falling off onto the ground to pupate and become mature insects, starting the cycle anew. This parasitic maggot infestation - which partially eats the infected animal alive - is not only agonizing, but releases toxins causing afflicted sheep to die lingering and terrible deaths ...
[After mulesing] when the wound heals, the area has no wool, and thus wet waste is less likely to stick to the animals and attract blowflies. Moreover, the skin around the anus tightens and becomes smooth so that even if flies do land, they do not lay eggs ...
No eggs means no maggots. No maggots means no flystrike. No flystrike means no torturous parasitic affliction and death. Thus, rather than being cruel, mulesing is actually a necessary preventative that protects sheep against far worse suffering than the transitorily pain the procedure causes. Indeed, without it, up to three million sheep would die agonizing deaths during a bad flystrike year.'

2. Mulesing is currently the only practical means of controlling flystrike
Those who support mulesing claim that it is currently the only viable means of controlling fly strike. This position has been put by Ian Macdonald, the New South Wales Minister for Primary Industries. Mr Macdonald stated, 'My concern is that [banning mulesing] may have major implications for the welfare of the NSW sheep flock. Being killed by flesh eating maggots is not a good way to die.
Unfortunately answers to this problem are not easy and will require considerable further research and development effort.
The NSW Government, in conjunction with other States and the Federal Government, will continue to assist the efforts of Australia's wool and sheep industries to inform international trading partners of the necessity for mulesing, as an animal welfare measure, to prevent large scale sheep mortalities while the research and development effort to find another solution continues.
Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) has said that blowfly strike would kill three million sheep per year if mulesing was not practiced in Australia. A spokesperson fro AWI has stated, 'Australian research and development is making progress on developing alternatives to mulesing that provide a similar level of protection to flystrike as mulesing.
An immediate stop on mulesing now would leave the State's 13,000 sheep producers high and dry with very few effective measures to control flystrike in their flocks.
What is needed are alternatives. Industry and Government bodies are working together to deliver these in the form of breech clips, genetics and breeding.
Instead of calling for an "immediate cessation" what is required is more energy spent on finding solutions and alternatives for producers.'
Australian Wool Innovation Limited (AWI) Chief Executive Officer Dr Len Stephens has further indicated, 'Scientific studies clearly show that mulesing and tail docking are currently the most practical, effective and humane methods of flystrike prevention available to Australian woolgrowers.
Mulesing and tail docking can decrease the incidence of breech flystrike in up to 100 per cent of sheep in a flock. Without such measures, up to 98 per cent of the sheep could be affected by flystrike, many fatally, given the right weather conditions.'
Referring to claims made by groups such as PETA that flystrike can be prevented by crutching alone, Wesley J Smith of National Review Online has stated, 'PETA suggests that sheep ranchers continually sheer the wool off of the rumps of each of the 100 million sheep in Australia. But that wouldn't work, because the flies lay eggs in healthy sheep in the wrinkly skin around a sheep's anus. It takes both the tightening of the skin and the removing of wool to prevent flystrike in healthy, uninjured sheep.'

3. Australian farmers will have phased out mulesing by 2010
In March 2008, then Australian Wool Innovation chief executive Craig Welsh confirmed to leading spinners and weavers in Hong Kong that the Australian wool industry was committed to finding alternatives to the current practice of mulesing by 2010.
Mr Welsh stated, 'I am personally committed to driving this company to meet the industry's commitment.'
Former Australian Wool Innovation Limited (AWI) Chief Executive Officer Dr Len Stephens has also indicated that scientific research presently being conducted by AWI and funded by Australian woolgrowers aimed to ensure there was a pain-free alternative available in the future for controlling flystrike in sheep flocks.
Dr Stephens stated, 'Woolgrowers care for their animals and have made it clear to AWI they'd like a pain-free alternative to mulesing. Consequently, we've invested about a million dollars in this research and the early results are very promising. The new method appears to cause no pain and appears to result in no side effects.'

4. The pain of mulesing can be managed
A CSIRO scientific study reported in the Australian Veterinary Journal in March 2007 showed that a combination of drugs can alleviate the pain response of lambs to mulesing.
The study results showed that analgesics can moderate the pain response of lambs to mulesing.
Animals in distress show elevated levels of the hormone cortisol. Greatest pain relief, as indicated by the behavioural and cortisol responses to mulesing, was provided by the combined administration of a commercially available topical local anaesthetic and a long acting non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, carprofen.
CSIRO's Dr Andrew Fisher said that the anti-inflammatory analgesic used in the study - carprofen - is currently not registered for use on sheep. Dr Fisher stated, 'Carprofen is most commonly used on dogs and cats to alleviate pain following surgery and there will need to be regulatory approval before it can be widely used on sheep.' Further work is also needed to identify the best time to administer the drug combination before mulesing.
Supporters of the continued use of mulesing argue that initiatives such as using drugs for pain relief would remove the accusation that the procedure caused sheep unacceptable levels of distress.

5. Some animal welfare groups have misrepresented the mulesing debate
Some Australian woolgrowers have claimed that animal welfare groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have taken over the mulesing debate and are actually spreading misinformation.
It has been noted, for example, that PETA has not properly acknowledged that Australian woolgrowers have pledged to phase out mulesing by 2010.
It has also been claimed that PETA and other animal welfare groups do not adequately acknowledge either the painful and potentially lethal nature of flystrike, nor the difficulties associated with finding other means of controlling flystrike.
It has also been claimed that groups such as PETA exploit high profile celebrities to support their causes, but do not ensure that the celebrities are properly informed.
United States pop star Pink has recently backed away from a campaign to boycott Australian wool organised by PETA.
Pink now claims that she did not have sufficient information before she made the anti-mulesing promotion. 'I probably could have been a lot more researched, on my own. That's the lesson I'm taking from this,' the singer said. Pink has also admitted she was unaware that Australian woolgrowers had pledged to stop mulesing by the end of 2010.
PETA has been accused of deliberately spreading simplified, misleading information about the Australian wool industry because its object, according to some critics, is to undermine the Australian wool industry and ultimately bring it down.
David Martosko, director of research at the Center for Consumer Freedom, an organisation which seeks to counter the impact of animal rights/ animal liberation organisations on the food and clothing industries has stated, 'PETA has always presented inaccurate and sensationalized stories to a willing media. But the lion's share of animal production for food and fibre is perfectly humane. PETA never shows this because it wants modern livestock farms eliminated, not improved.'
Supporting this claim, Wesley J Smith of National Review Online has stated, 'And this is precisely why PETA will never disseminate nauseating pictures of flystruck sheep dripping blood and maggots on its website or billboards. Doing so would demonstrate that the Australian wool producers are merely protecting their sheep [by mulesing].'

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.

Newspaper items used in the compilation of this issue outline
Please note: there is no clippings package for this issue outline. Instead, the opinion pieces necessary for VCE English Unit 3 Language Analysis have been drawn from the Internet. They come from Australian sites and were posted on or after September 1, 2007. Direct links are provided below.

Explanation: there has been considerable interest from schools in the issue of whether mulesing should proceed, but the major newspapers seem reluctant to run comment / opinion on the matter. We at Echo are at a loss to explain this and we would hope to see more opinion in print in the near future.

The links below (drawn from the "Internet Information" section above) are direct links to opinions published after September 1 on the Internet. (You can also run a search for straight news items in the Echo Newspaper Indexes section)

On October 18/10/07 radio commentator Alan Jones expressed his views on PETA's campaign against mulesing and Australian woolgrowers who use the procedure. Alan Jones is highly critical of PETA.
Jones' comments can be found at http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2007/10/18/Wool_producers_suffer_enough_without_PETAs_stupidity

On December 7, 2007, Animal Liberation Australia issued a media release criticising the proposed use of plastic clips to cause non-surgical mulesing. The group believe this procedure also causes unacceptable levels of distress to the lambs. The full text of the media release can be found at http://www.animal-lib.org.au/mediareleases/041207%20mulesing%20clips.doc

On December 24, 2007, The Sydney Morning Herald published a letter from Christine Townend, the founder of Animal Liberation. The letter titled, 'Progress on mulesing shows there is no excuse for cruelty', is a criticism of the current mulesing procedures and suggests alternatives are available. The full text can be found at http://www.smh.com.au/news/letters/progress-on-mulesing-shows-there-is-no-excuse-for-cruelty/2007/12/23/1198344877124.html

On March 10, 2008, the New South Wales Minister for Primary Industries, said that moves to stop mulesing immediately in his state were premature. His views were put in an article titled 'Suggestion to stop mulesing too hasty: Macdonald' which was published in the Farmonline journal, 'The Land'. The full text of the article can be found at http://theland.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/livestock/sheep/suggestion-to-stop-mulesing-too-hasty-macdonald/82107.aspx

On March 28, 2008, Opinion Online, an Internet comment site, published an opinion piece titled, 'www.BoycottSweden.com'. The piece was written by Jonathan J. Ariel, an economist and financial analyst.
Ariel argues that the Swedish opposition to mulesing is misinformed and suggests a degree of economic self-interest in the Swedish boycott of Australian wool. The full text of the comment can be found at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7164&page=1

On April 4, 2008, Tamworth's 'Northern Daily Leader' newspaper published a letter to the editor titled, 'So long, Ian. Go out to pasture'. The letter is written by Ingrid E Newkirk, the President of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Norfolk, Virginia, USA.
The letter is a criticism of former Liberal politician and federal Minister for Defence and former president of the National Farmers' Federation, Ian McLachlan. The letter criticises McLachlan's support of mulesing and suggests his own extensive breeding stocks may have influenced his position on developing sheep with wool-free breeches.
The full text of this letter can be found at http://tamworth.yourguide.com.au/news/opinion/opinion/so-long-ian-go-out-to-pasture/1216476.html