Stop live exports
April 2022
Why, when eight out of 10 Australians are expressing a “Sheep export outcry”, is the Agriculture Department once again allowing live animal exports of sheep to the Middle East during the northern hemisphere’s hottest months? It is overlooking the obvious health concerns, such as shocking heat stress and slow deaths.
We know only too well these will occur. Previous footage showed the unimaginable suffering of animals.
Those that survive the horrors of the hellish journeys are exposed to cruel, unregulated treatment and slaughter on arrival. No amount of profit can justify inflicting this torture on gentle and inoffensive animals.
Fay Mathews
Many sheep lost
December 2019
A live animal export ship capsized just off the coast of Romania a week ago and rescuers managed to save only 254 of the 14,000 sheep on board.
No doubt insurance will cover the losses, but once again there has been a horrendous loss of innocent animals, crushed and drowned.
Why are we not calling for an end to this hellish transportation in filthy, rusty unseaworthy vessels which cause dehydration, starvation, searing heat stress, overcrowding and disease?
We have heard of fires on board and vessels sinking before .
But this news serves as a tragic reminder that disaster is still ever-present every time a disgusting live export ship departs our shores.
Diane Cornelius
Care for lambs
May 2019
How can people eat baby lambs and still maintain their dignity and self respect?
Just imagine when you buy a leg of lamb you are planning on eating a little leg of a sentient being that frolics with its devoted mother.
We in Australia have no justification in facilitating this cruelty and causing such misery and death to animals. We have plenty of choices which enable us to live a cruelty-free lifestyle, and thank goodness so many of our people are turning to this kinder way of living.
Christine Pierson
A vegan Oz Day
January 2019
Every year in Australia, 30 billion sheep are killed – and 20 billion of them are lambs.
Australia Day barbecues are responsible for a large percentage of these deaths, for something as trivial as a fleeting moment of taste.
With the ease of recipes availability on the internet and delicious vegan foods becoming mainstream, why not hold a cruelty-free celebration?
Veganism is not just a dietary choice; it about rejecting commodification of vulnerable non-human animals and rejecting animal slavery. Veganism is about justice.
Fay Mathews
Pulling the wool over our eyes
December 2018
Please allow me to respond to the two recent letters defending the wool industry.
I urge the readers to google: “Breaking video Goats thrown, cut and killed for Mohair” and then tell me that my claims of animal abuse are “isolated incidences” or a “figment” of a “vegan imagination”.
As for Robin Grant, there is no act involving cruelty to animals – factory farming, elephant riding, abusing “fur” animals, fox hunting, seal hunting (which involves the clubbing to death of baby seals), etc – that this cruel man will not defend as being nothing more than “a matter of choice”.
If I sound angry in my letters, it’s because I believe the most deplorable and cowardly people on earth are those who do harm to the weak and defenceless, whether human or animal.
Eric Bahrt
A cruel tradition that has no place in the modern era
December 2018
Re: “Black-and-white views blind the animal rights movement."
Robin Grant, unfortunately, the Scottish shearing industry is not as squeaky clean as you believe. Just six weeks ago the Scottish Sun reported that sheep on Scottish and English farms were being kicked, beaten and abused by shearers.
The footage, filmed covertly on 49 farms, showed animals being kicked, slapped and beaten with metal clippers. One worker repeatedly slammed a sheep’s head against the floor while shouting abuse. In some of the footage, the shearers threw the animals down from their shearing platforms on to the ground. When the sheep tried to move during the shearing process, workers pushed their boots heavily down on the animals’ heads and necks, kicking and slapping them in the face.
It’s true that if we cease this industry people will lose their jobs, but jobs are being lost all the time. It’s called progress. The sooner these cruel “traditional” jobs disappear the better it will be, because cruelty has no place in a civilised world.
Jenny Moxham
Sheep’s heavy load
July 2018
Last week, a news item about a very woolly Australian sheep was picked up by newspapers around the globe. The sheep was carrying around a whopping 30 kilograms of wool. But that was nothing compared with another Australian sheep, found in 2015, who could barely walk beneath 40 kilograms of wool.
Had “Chris” not been rescued it was considered unlikely he could have survived another summer.
He could barely see because of the wool covering his eyes and if he’d fallen over, he’d have been be unable to get back up, exposing him to starvation or attacks by predators. Like all animals on the planet, sheep evolved in a way that enhanced their chances of survival. They evolved to naturally shed their fleece. But, for nothing but greed, man has selectively bred them to grow thick fleece that they can no longer shed.
He has bred them in a manner that not only decreases their chance of survival but actually ensures a premature and painful death after about six years in the wild. But sheep aren’t the only ones suffering at the hands of greedy man. “Broiler” chickens, hens and cows also suffer as a result of man’s meddling. Is it ethical to alter animals in ways that harm them, simply to benefit ourselves?
Jenny Moxham
The sheep dissent
July 2018
Federated Farmers’ meat and wool chairman Miles Anderson says, ‘‘Using wool is a win for everyone involved’’ (Plastic backlash helps wool, July 24).
I’m sure the sheep would disagree.
Jenny Moxham
Ultra fine wool production in Australia
April 2018
The article referring to fine wool and with the photo of a shearer shearing a very clean, white sheep.Thousands of sheep pay the highest price for factory farmed ultra fine wool production in Australia.
Kept indoors with their bodies covered in order to keep their fleece clean, confined in tiny stalls, causing them to chew the bars, pace and rock in frustrated boredom. Deprived of their normal sensory stimulation and the ability to socialise and graze in the open air.
They are made to stand year after year on hard slatted floor, which causes terrible feet deformities as their nails become overgrown and their hooves painfully spread. These poor animals are considered wool producing machines.
This article again highlights how profit, over animal protection from cruelty, is always the driver.
Diane Cornelius