Wear vegan to stop ‘industrial’ animal abuse

Sir, – In a landmark legal case, a Scottish sheep farmer has pled guilty to cruelty to animals after a PETA exposé revealed him punching and kicking sheep in the face.

However, while the legal case was unprecedented, the cruelty certainly wasn’t.

Such abuse is rampant in the wool industry.

Video exposés of 116 wool-industry facilities on four continents have all revealed horrific cruelty. Because shearers are usually paid by volume, not by the hour, they work at breakneck speed – and as a result, they often handle the sheep roughly and recklessly, throwing them around and kicking them during shearing.

Workers have been seen stamping and standing on sheep’s necks and stomachs, punching them in the face, and beating them with electric clippers.

Sheep are intelligent, gentle animals who form meaningful bonds with other animals – they can recognise dozens of individuals from photos, and seeing a photo of a friend calms them in a nerve-racking situation.

But in the wool industry they’re treated as nothing more than commodities.

As neither the industry nor the justice system will stop this cruelty, it’s up to consumers to make a difference.

We can do this by refusing to buy wool and instead opting for animal-free fabrics such as organic cotton, bamboo, hemp and recycled polyester, all of which are widely available on the market today.

The best way to stop the abuse is to wear vegan.

Sascha Camilli. PETA Foundation.