Dear All,

we are still waiting for the Sydney Parliament's decision on the bill presented by NSW Legislative Council and Animal Justice Party Mr Pearson. The decision has been postponed until January 2020. But the lobby of wool producers is already trying to avert the law. All the more so, we need every signature to keep up the pressure, because as Mark Pearson points out in an interview with the German Consumer Initiative: only with our, the consumers, help - real reforms will succeed!

The interview´s original can be found at: https://verbraucher.com/

CONSUMERS CONCRETE 4/2019 25
PROFIT MUST NOT BE WORTH MORE THAN THE LAMBS

(GP) Over 235,000 signers: The commitment of animal rights activists is overwhelming. They are campaigning for a ban on the cruel circumcision of sheep in Australia whose skin around the anus is cut off by farmers producing merino wool without anaesthesia (see VK2/2019). Now the first success: Mark Pearson submitted the petition to the Sydney Parliament and fights for more protection of the maltreated lambs. Why is he telling in this interview:

Mr Pearson, why are you advocating anti-mulesing?

Mark Pearson: Because these are the worst mutilations on live animals in the world, and people also perform them on lambs on an industrial scale.
After all, they torture about 23 to 27 million small sheep every year without giving the animals pain-relieving anesthetics.

Is this a typical Australian procedure or do farmers in other regions of the world also practice these cruel practices?

It is above all an Australian problem. In New Zealand, too, farmers used to maltreat their animals in this way, but mulesing is now forbidden there.

In your opinion, does a ban on this tormenting practice also have a realistic chance in Australia?

I think we will actually manage to ban mulesing within the next two years. The pressure from wool merchants - and their customers - all over the world will also help. Also the alternative treatment with liquid nitrogen, the so-called freezing, is making great progress and is on the verge that sheep farmers will soon be able to use it economically. The treatment of sheep will then be much more humane, as farmers will no longer have to cut skin wrinkles off their animals.

Is animal welfare the main argument in your fight against mulesing? Do farmers not also have an economic interest - perhaps justified - which we must take into account?

Economic profit must never be valued higher than animal welfare or human profit. Unfortunately, this is often the case. It is only gradually that our wool producers realize that most of their customers, namely wool buyers, no longer simply accept animals suffering for the production of fibres or meat.

And what, Mr Pearson, do Australian farmers say about your animal welfare initiative?
More and more of our farmers are joining us. They welcome animal welfare and take a positive view of it. But so far the resistance still comes from the industrial wool producer industry.

How do you think consumers can help animals - especially those who do not live in Australia but in other parts of the world?
Unfortunately, until recently it was very difficult in Australia to initiate real reforms in animal welfare. That is why external pressure is very important. People in other countries must and can help. Especially those who import Australian products for their domestic market. This is not only true for wool. The ban on imports of kangaroo products, for example, which has been in force in Russia since 2009 or in China since 2015, and the fact that the USA is also preparing such a ban, caused the market for such goods to collapse completely in Australia - this saved many kangaroos.

More information can be found in the petition of the
TV journalist Joanna Michna on change.org (change.org/merino wool).

VERBRAUCHER INITIATIVE actively supports this campaign with information stands and reports.