Saturday, October 8

Controversial Issues in Australia

I found this on the Yahoo News Website - I'm not big on voicing my opinion about controversial issues, but this caught my eye. I looked the procedure up on the internet and pasted it at the bottom - I know there are always 2 sides to every story, I'm not defending the procedure just putting some facts in with the article.

Sheep lovers going naked at Australian embassies

Tue Sep 27, 2:54 PM ET

Animal rights activists will reportedly go naked outside five Australian embassies around the world in a bid to force Australian sheep farmers to stop a controversial farming practice.
The US-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) said demonstrations would be held outside Australian missions in Washington, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and Sao Paulo.
The action is aimed at stopping the practice of mulesing, in which slices of flesh are cut from the rear ends of lambs to prevent flystrike or the infestation of flesh-eating maggots.
"We don't mind showing a little of our behinds if it will save lambs from having chunks of flesh hacked off of theirs," US-based PETA campaigner Matt Rice told the Australian national news service AAP from the United States.
PETA suspended the campaign last month but is now resuming it after Australia's major wool producing groups did not agree to ban mulesing by 2010.
Rice said eight naked PETA protestors would appear at Canberra's Washington embassy on Tuesday painted in the colours of the Australian flag.
"We will take the protest around the world in an effort to alert the world to the cruelty that goes on Down Under," he said.
PETA's call to boycott Australian wool has won support from retailers such as Timberland and Abercrombie and Fitch, as well as rock star Chrissie Hynde and Hollywood's Alicia Silverstone.
One Australian industry group, the Australian Wool Growers' Association, has agreed to end mulesing by 2010 and will not be targeted by the PETA campaign.

Mulesing is the surgical removal of a strip of wool-bearing wrinkle skin from around the tail of a sheep. Mulesing is illegal in Britain but is common practice in Australia, where it is expected to be phased out by 2010. Method: The loose free skin is surgically removed, in a single cut, with no effect on underlying muscle tissue. The non-wooled skin which is around the anus (and vulva in ewes) is pulled out as the cut heals and results in a smooth area that does not get fouled by excreta or urine.
Lambs are normally mulesed a few weeks after birth. The operation takes one to two minutes. Because it is a skin snip, there is little blood loss from the cut other than a minor ooozing on the edges of the cut skin. Lambs rarely die or become ill after mulesing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulesing

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