NATIONAL: Australian womenswear designer Jayson Brunsdon has blasted the anti-mulesing campaign waged by global animal rights movement People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) as misguided. The Sydney-based designer, who has a strategic partnership with wool promotion body Australian Wool Innovation (AWI), said ongoing boycotting initiatives by PETA were unnecessary because the industry had already agreed to ban mulesing by 2010.
Brunsdon said boycotts by major international brands such as Adidas, Hugo Boss, Abecrombie & Fitch and Victoria's Secret were hurting farmers at a time of crisis.
"The farmers have been going through enough hell with the drought which has been going on forever, without having to cop this flak," he told news agency AFP. "Everybody wants mulesing phased out, nobody wants to hurt the sheep but it's a renewable, sustainable, biodegradable fibre which is one of the best things in the world."
"You don't kill the animals. It's not like fur. It's not even like leather. It's very humane."
Brunsdon defended the practice of mulesing - the surgical removal of strips of wool-bearing wrinkle skin from around the tail of a sheep to prevent potentially fatail 'flystrike' infection - claiming it was the only method of prevention against "a very horrible death."