ON Sunday night, Australians once again got a vivid reminder that live export is a national disgrace.

Animals Australia provided footage to Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud showing horrifying conditions endured by nearly 64,000 sheep sent from Fremantle to the Middle East last August. Approximately 2400 of those sheep died from heat stress. Minister Littleproud said that the footage left him “shocked and gutted”.

Well, before you put the champagne on ice in the hope that, finally, officials’ eyes have been opened and change is coming, let me show you the sobering facts.

What’s truly shocking is that the government has had ample opportunity to crack down on live export in the past, yet the carnage continues. After every single high-profile incident — including the deaths of more than 4000 sheep on the Bader III in 2013; a 2011 exposé by the news program Four Corners revealing that the eyes of Australian cows exported to Indonesia were gouged out and their limbs were cut open while they were still conscious and that animals were kicked and beaten during slaughter; a joint investigation in 2006 by PETA and Animals Australia documenting that workers in an Egyptian slaughterhouse stabbed Australian cows, gouged their eyes out, and disabled them by slashing their leg tendons; the deaths of more than 5000 sheep aboard the Cormo Express in 2003; and other incidents, on and on ad nauseam — politicians have expressed concern and then taken no meaningful action at all.

Many Australians are no doubt shocked and upset by the vision shown on @60Mins. Farmers who care for these animals will be deeply distressed. We need an industry that will not tolerate wrongdoing and an environment in which whistleblowers can come forward. https://t.co/8LanE5JHft — Hon. David Littleproud MP (@D_LittleproudMP) April 9, 2018

At the most, live exports may be temporarily halted and then quietly reinstated. The politicians hope they can weather the news cycle and then it will be back to business as usual.

More than 200 million animals have been crammed on to filthy cargo ships over the last 30 years, and more than 2.5 million of them have died badly.

Every single one was an individual who felt fear and pain and who suffered mightily.

The animals are prodded, kicked, and herded on to crowded, filthy, multi-tiered, open-deck ships and forced to stand for long periods of time — sometimes even weeks — in a sickening slurry of water, urine, and faeces. Cramped conditions, poor ventilation, and soaring temperatures spell disaster. A mortality rate of up to two per cent of the many thousands of sheep and one per cent of cattle during each journey is considered “acceptable” by the Australian government.

Once they reach their destination — countries that have few, if any, animal-welfare laws and no enforcement of those they do have — surviving animals are commonly dragged from the ships and thrown into trucks and even car boots. Most of the animals’ throats are cut while they’re still conscious and able to feel pain.

Not surprisingly, a veterinarian who worked on board these ships wrote in Sydney University journal Control and Therapy in 2014 that live export can never be humane.

It’s an inconvenient truth for the wool industry that it must share the blame for these atrocities. Old or unwanted sheep who are no longer viable to exploit for their wool are among the unlucky animals aboard these death ships.

And truthfully, that’s not “shocking” either, as investigations of the wool industry by PETA and our international affiliates have revealed over and over again how little regard many sheep farmers and shearers have for animals’ wellbeing. Impatient workers have been recorded violently punching sheep, beating and jabbing them in the head with metal clippers, kicking them, poking their eyes, twisting their necks, and slamming them onto the floor. Sheep are sheared so quickly that they’re often severely cut, and the workers sew up the most gaping wounds with a needle and thread — without painkillers.

media_camera A distressed sheep shot on-board Panama-flagged livestock carrier Awassi Express, from Australia to the Middle East. (Pic: Animals Australia)

Following these exposés, officials in Victoria last year charged six shearers with at least 70 counts of cruelty to animals, the first-ever charges anywhere in the world against wool-industry workers for abusing sheep. Industry groups and government officials expressed — you guessed it — “shock.”

And in case we need reminding, here in Australia — the source of 25 per cent of the world’s wool — in order to make them produce more wool, merino sheep are bred to have extra folds of skin, which hold moisture and attract flies. Then, in a crude attempt to prevent “flystrike”, which good breeding and husbandry practices could head off at the pass, sheep farmers use what are basically gardening shears to cut huge chunks of flesh from lambs’ backsides, a procedure known as “mulesing” that leaves lambs in excruciating pain, unable to walk for days. This is standard industry practice.

As caring citizens, it isn’t enough to sit back and hope that the government or industry groups will take meaningful action to stop such pervasive abuses. History has shown that, in all likelihood, they won’t. But we can make a difference by deciding not to subsidise the live-export and wool industries with our purchases.

In 2018, vegan wool — made from materials such as bamboo, hemp, modal, rayon, and cotton — is readily available.

Let’s ask for it, buy it, and support not only a humane marketplace but also an Australia that can hold its head up high and say, “Live exports? No, we stopped those. We don’t support such cruelty here.”

Emma Hurst is the media officer for PETA Australia.