A Democratic Australian Senator linked to last week’s commentary on the Lamb ad, and included a link to an article on Surgical Mutilation of animals.
The article discusses, among other things, the practice of “mulesing”, or mutilation of a lamb to prevent it from getting fly strike. Fly strike kills an estimated 3 million sheep a year in Australia. Mulesling involves slicing flesh off the hindquarters of a lamb so that it grows back as scar tissue, without the wrinkles that provide a place for flies to lay maggots.
In the article the authors mention other methods of prevention that have been developed, including breeding for sheep without wrinkles in the breech area, vaccination to increase sheep immunity to strike, chemical applications to kill the wool follicles in the breech area, biological and other control of blow flies, and the traditional methods of applied chemicals to repel flies; but how about this for a radical concept: What about stopping the industrialized wholesale slaughter of animals for meat?
Previously a shepherd would look after his flock. That phrase still carries with it a powerful evocation of pastoral care and concern. He would tend to each one and make sure that it was clean and healthy. Today huge stations run by a few people and some machinery churn animals out for slaughter in an impersonal fashion.
Previously people would mainly get wool from their sheep and only occasionally, and in some cases never, eat them. Today people eat sheep all the time without even thinking about it - simply going into the supermarket and buying a slickly wrapped package, taking it home and popping it in the microwave or the oven is all it takes. If eating Lamb is what being Australian is all about, then this is all part of it. Buying that lamb and cooking it up is the direct cause of all this suffering.
All the methods mentioned by the article’s author are expensive and complicated, involving further industrial processing with attendant resource depletion and pollution. Sure you can swallow a spider to catch a fly, but why not simply not swallow the fly to begin with?
Animals Australia federation of animal welfare and animal rights :: Surgical Mutilations
Sometimes it seems like people like being cruel. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Prabhupada put it well, describing the material world as no place for a gentleman.
I am Vegetarian and against cruelty to animals, let’s get that out there first. I am also the Son of a farmer, and have seen the Mules operation performed many times. The original instigator of anti-mulesing information is the American animal rights organisation, PETA.
The thing that concerns me, is that the organisation known as PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals)has initiated violent action against Australian Farmers, in the form of trade boycotts and Mis-information, and people are believing lies at face value. We should always investigate a provider of information to see if they are qualified to deliver it. PETA (Please look up there web site) provides many examples of alternative treatments to control fly strike including the chemical treatment mentioned above. PETA’s information is referenced, the article information, date’s and authors are provided. If you take the time to look up each of the referenced articles you get closer and closer to truth, We find that the majority of quoted treatments do not exist.
Please look up the fly-strike vaccine if you do nothing else. As a product, it did not progress to manufacture, was not mass-produced, and is not available for use.
PETA’s claims are two-fold:
1. Since alternative treatment options exist, Mulesing should be abandoned.
2. Any responses to PETA by Australian farmers have been insincere, farmers are not interested in alternatives.
Investigation will show that the claims of 1. are false. Carefull observation of the authors referenced in PETA’s own anti-mules campaign show’s that the majority of articles (>80%) are Australian, and further investigation show’s the majority of these (Eg CSIRO research) is funded by these insincere farmers.
You are welcome to your opinions. Spreading false information just because it agrees with your opinions is not the correct way.
Eric, thanks for the information. If you read my article carefully you’ll see that it is not an endorsement or support of the PETA article, but acutally a challenge, although on different grounds from yours. I actually condemn the suggestions of the author (PETA?) out of hand:
“All the methods mentioned by the article’s author are expensive and complicated, involving further industrial processing with attendant resource depletion and pollution. Sure you can swallow a spider to catch a fly, but why not simply not swallow the fly to begin with?”
Even if they exist they are not acceptable solutions, what to speak of if they don’t even exist, as you have stated here?
My point is that in order to alleviate the symptoms we have to stop the cause - the massive-scale industrialized slaughter of animals.
Simply suggesting bandaids, existent or non-existent, is not the answer.
Thank You for your reply. I have read back through the article, including the links to the butchers ad. On the whole well written and informative.I also take on and agree with the over-all objective. Thanks.
Eric.