WOOLGROWERS struggling to meet the 2010 deadline to phase out mulesing have reacted with relief to the industry decision to back away from the timetable.

The shift came after this week’s takeover of the board of research and development body Australian Wool Innovation by growers opposed to the deadline.

But animal rights activists are claiming that if the 2010 deadline, originally set by the industry in 2004, is not met, international calls to boycott Australian wool will increase. Mulesing, which involves the removal of skin folds from the rear of sheep to prevent fly strike, has been portrayed as cruel by animal rights activists, particularly the international group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Newly elected chairman of Australian Wool Innovation Wal Merriman said yesterday the 2010 deadline might exist in many people’s minds, but farmers had no intention of letting their sheep die from fly strike. He said alternatives, including the use of clips, intradermal chemicals, pain killers and breeding, were all being pursued but at this point none was viable. He said an estimated three million sheep a year would die without mulesing.

“The original deadline was based on the fact AWI believed they had viable alternatives, but these didn’t eventuate,” he said.

“Nobody likes mulesing, but the alternative is letting millions of sheep die a slow and painful death, and nobody wants that.”

Suzanne Cass of the Live Export Shame group said mulesing was not a surgical treatment but a mutilation carried out without anaesthetic. “AWI is not doing itself any favours by ignoring animal advocates and thinking we will go away. We won’t.”

Fashion leaders including Abercrombie & Fitch, H&M, Victoria’s Secret and Liz Claiborne, along with retailers AB Lindex, with 346 stores in northern Europe, and RNB Retail and Brands, with 450 stores in 12 countries, have pressured Australian graziers to stop mulesing.

But woolgrower Neville Swain, from near Gunnedah in NSW, said it would be difficult to phase out mulesing by 2010. “I was very surprised when I heard they had set the deadline in the first place,” he said. “They must have been under extreme pressure.”

He said the alternatives were not yet practical. Like many woolgrowers, he believes the original anti-mulesing push was stirred up by “a mob of radicals who have been very clever in convincing our customers they shouldn’t buy our product”.

Wool Producers Australia president Don Hamblin said many of the problems derived from the 2010 deadline being set without realistic alternatives to mulesing being in place. “It was a very tight deadline,” he said. “The commitment to a specific date has upset woolgrowers and caused a lot of angst.”

President of NSW Farmers Jock Laurie said problems had arisen because promises to phase out mulesing had been made on thebasis of faith that research would develop alternatives within the timeframe. “I’ve been mulesing for years — if there was an alternative, I wouldn’t be doing it. But it has to be an alternative that is affordable.”

Editorial — Page 13

Credit: John Stapleton