B

ack in 2014, PETA exposed extreme cruelty to sheep in Australia, and six shearers pleaded guilty. The wool industry called that case a “wake-up call” that had forever changed it. But just days before those claims of reform, another eyewitness was inside the sheds seeing exactly the same abuse as before. In December 2017, the wool industry again condemned such cruelty, and again, it vowed that it and the shearers would do better.

But nothing has changed.

In late 2017, another eyewitness went inside 16 shearing sheds in South Australia and Victoria, documenting the same sickening cruelty that PETA has exposed again and again.

Workers still struck petrified sheep in the face with sharp metal clippers. They still cut them up and stitched up their gaping wounds without any pain relief. And they still threw them out of the sheds.

Based on this evidence, Victoria officials filed cruelty-to-animals charges and a shearer pleaded guilty. Officials in South Australia have opened a criminal investigation into the cruelty documented there.

Does this look better to you? Does it look like the industry has changed one bit?