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WOOL – the plight of the sheep
About 70% of the wool used for clothing in Britain comes from Australia. The sheep there are no more than commodities from which to get as much wool yield as possible, another example of animal exploitation for greed. In fact on the website of the Australian Wool industry taskforce, (www.woolisbest.com) a headline says “a happy sheep is a profitable sheep”.
From the earliest of times there has been complicity in the use of wool. Merino sheep, originally from Spain, are the most efficient wool producers with huge and magnificent, thick fleeces. Mutton breeds, which primarily originated in England, are used predominately for meat. Cross-breeds are raised for the dual purpose of meat and wool. However, Merinos also yield mutton, and mutton breeds also yield wool. No sheep escapes either function; it is just a matter of emphasis. Essentially, all wool is a slaughterhouse product
Australian farmers breed sheep to grow extremely wrinkly skin, so they produce more wool. This in turn can collect urine and moisture in the hot weather. The sheep then suffer from ‘flystrike’, where flies, attracted to the moisture, lay eggs in the folds of skin. Once hatched, the maggots can eat the sheep alive. To prevent this, many Australian ranchers perform an operation called mulesing. This is a cruel technique used with no thought for the suffering of the animal, where they force the sheep onto their backs, restrain their legs and, without painkillers, slice chunks of flesh from their backsides. This is done to encourage smooth, scarred skin that can’t harbour fly eggs. However flies are often attracted to the open wounds, making it ineffective as well as cruel.
On the surface, it appears that wool is a benign product because, at least theoretically, it can be obtained without harming the sheep. However, upon closer inspection, we find that the wool industry is actually very similar to the egg and dairy industries. While animals such as laying hens, dairy cows, and wool-bearing sheep are not immediately killed to procure their saleable products, they suffer tremendously for years prior to their ultimate and unavoidable slaughter.
Most people believe that sheep are overburdened with too much wool and therefore need to be shorn. Although today's wool-bearing sheep have thick, heavy coats, it is the result of selective breeding over thousands of years. These animals are descended from wild mountain sheep, still found in some remote regions of the world, which shed their fine woolly hair naturally. Wool provides sheep with warmth and protection from inclement weather and sunburn. Because our "modern" wool-bearers are extremely vulnerable to the elements without their wool, many sheep die of exposure shortly after being denuded.
Wool is classed as either "shorn wool," that which is shorn from sheep annually, or "pulled wool," that which is taken from sheep at the time of slaughter.
A large percentage of the world's wool is produced from Merinos exported from Australia. These sheep are crammed onto ships by the tens of thousands, crowded into filthy pens, and packed so tightly they can barely move. As a result, thousands of sheep die each year from suffocation, trampling, or starvation.
Sheep shearers are paid by piece rate, meaning that speed not precision guides the process. Consequently, most sheep are roughly handled, lacerated, and injured during the process. The production of wool, as with all industries that consider animals as mere commodities, is rife with cruelty and abuse. In addition, the purchase of wool supports the continual slaughter of millions of lambs and sheep each year.
Vegans do not use wool or any other materials obtained from animals. Fortunately, there are many alternatives to wool that are cruelty-free, non-allergenic, quick-drying, easy to clean, environmentally sound, and provide warmth without bulk.
Try these website for great alternatives to wool:
http://www.savethesheep.com/alternatives
SILK – the plight of the moth and other insects
Not many realize the link between silk and animal cruelty.
There are between three and four hundred varieties of moths that produce silk cocoons. Of these, the larva of a ‘domesticated’ insect (Bombyx Mori ) is the so-called “silkworm”. It should go through the same stages of metamorphosis - egg, larva, pupae, and adult- that all moths do. However, as silk is derived from the cocoons of the larvae, most of the insects raised by the industry don’t live past the pupae stage, as they are steamed or gassed alive in their cocoons. This is so the silk thread can be unraveled as one continuous thread.
Pharmaceutical companies have taken an interest in these insects, because they are perceived as inexpensive and easy to raise and can be genetically engineered to produce silk that contains human collagen. Silkworms have also been genetically modified to spin fluorescent-coloured silk.
The military communities have been experimenting with spiders, hoping to harness the strength and flexibility of spider silk. They are hoping to create a fabric that could replace Kevlar. Spider silk is very ductile and able to stretch up to 40% of its length without breaking.
If they are kept together in captivity, however, spiders succumb to stress-induced cannibalism; 400 spiders are needed to spin enough silk to create a square yard of cloth, so farming spiders has not been a profitable venture. Instead, scientists are experimenting on goats, cows and hamsters by inserting spider-silk genes into their cells in an attempt to create proteins similar to those of spider silk. Transgenic cloned goats, for example, produce milk that contains silk proteins, which have been used in fibres sold under the name “BioSteel.” The military continues to fund this research, even though it has yet to produce a product that is commercially viable (it takes 600 gallons of milk to produce a single bullet-proof vest).
There are some great alternatives to silk, including nylon, rayon and milkweed seedpod fibres!
The leather industry
Every year, the global leather industry slaughters more than a billion animals and tans their skins and hides. In the UK around 2 million cattle are slaughtered annually, and the hides represent about 10% of the animal’s total value. This comes to around £500 million per year. It’s big business and it helps to keep the meat industry profitable.
Cattle hides account for most of the footwear and leather goods produced in the UK. Calf skin is especially valued for its fine grain and is used in shoe uppers, jackets, gloves and wallets. Transportation of these animals to the slaughterhouse causes much distress and there are inevitably casualties in transit. This is due to the cramped conditions the animals are forced to endure. They often suffer dehydration, hunger and injury before they even arrive at a slaughterhouse.
It’s not just cattle, pigs, goats and sheep are a significant source of raw materials. Then there are the ‘exotic’ animals, often hunted illegally by poachers.
Down
Down is the soft layer of feathers closest to a bird’s skin, primarily in the chest region. These feathers are highly valued because they do not have quills and are soft and small. Most products labeled “down” contain a combination of these under-feathers and other feathers or fillers. While most down and feathers are removed from birds during slaughter, geese from breeding flocks, and those raised for meat and foie gras may be live-plucked. In countries where this cruel practice continues, up to 5 ounces of feathers and down are pulled from each bird every six weeks from the time that they are ten weeks old until they are up to four years old – if they manage to live that long.
Plucking geese causes them considerable pain and distress. One study of chickens’ heart rates and behaviours determined that “feather removal is likely to be painful to the bird(s),” and another study found that the blood glucose level of some geese nearly doubled (a symptom of severe stress) during plucking.
Eider ducks are a protected species, but their feathers are sought out for bedding and clothing. The females lay eggs and surround them with feathers plucked from their own breasts. Farmers in Iceland gather more than 6,500 pounds of Eider duck feathers each year. By taking these feathers, farmers are removing important insulation that the eggs need to hatch.
It takes feathers from at least eighty nests to fill just one quilt.
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