Pamela Anderson urges Australia to ban sheep farming practice
Pamela Anderson has urged Australia’s prime minister to ban a sheep farming practice currently at the centre of a global campaign to boycott Australian wool.
Pammy wrote to Prime Minister John Howard asking him to end the “sad practices” of live sheep exports and a process known as mulesing - which involves slicing flesh and wool away from the sheep’s rump to prevent blowflies from laying their eggs in the warm, damp skin.
Farmers say the procedure is an essential part of caring for the animals in Australia’s hot climate. But the U.S.-based animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals calls the practice an unnecessary mutilation and wants it stopped.
Pammy said in the letter that consumers were horrified by the practice, and also condemned the export of live sheep on “death ships” to the Middle East.
Australia ships live animals to Islamic countries that require halal meat products - meat from an animal that has been killed by a Muslim who slits its jugular vein and drains all the blood from the carcass.
Australian exporters were accused of cruelty several years ago when a ship carrying sheep became stranded at sea for weeks and thousands of animals died.