She famously denounced fur by declaring, “I don’t want to kill animals,” and now PETA is urging Donatella Versace to extend that same compassion to sheep. As the lookbook legend prepared to judge the 2025 International Woolmark Prize in Milan, PETA UK wrote to the designer, reminding her that sheep suffer when we take their wool just as much as other animals do when stripped of their fur – which Versace jettisoned in 2018.

Because much of what happens in the wool industry – from mutilations to slaughter – is hidden from view or greenwashed by glossy ad campaigns, many of us don’t realise just how cruel wool is. Sheep are complex and fascinating animals who deserve to be heard, not herded, and you don’t have to be a household name in high-end fashion to help them!

Every Sheep is Someone

Like us, every sheep is an individual with unique thoughts and desires. Humans may corral sheep as if they have a hive mind, but they’re sensitive and have distinct personalities.
Sheep are social animals who enjoy the company of their flock. They can recognise the faces of at least 50 other sheep and grow depressed if isolated from others. Smart and empathetic, sheep can even detect anxiety in another sheep simply by observing their face!

Studies into sheep emotion find that sheep even display “optimism” and “pessimism,” showing excitement when they control a situation. You can imagine how hard it is for them to have their whole lives at the mercy of others’ appetites and wardrobe choices.

Wool Is Just as Cruel as Fur

When the world started turning its back on fur in the 1990s, it was because of the confinement, abuse, and grotesque living conditions fur-farmed animals are subject to, but sheep don’t fare much better.

In the UK, exposure to the elements claims the lives of 15% of lambs in their infancy, but those who do start life with painful mutilations like tail docking (which, by the way, they’d wag when happy if they could, just like dogs!) and castration – without pain relief.

Shearing shed cruelty is also well-documented. One investigation shows workers beating, stamping on, kicking, mutilating, and throwing sheep, but it’s far from an isolated incident. PETA entities have now released 15 damning exposés of over 150 wool industry operations on four continents, revealing workers beating, kicking, and throwing sheep and sewing their gaping wounds shut without pain relief. When sheep are no longer profitable, they’re sent to slaughter to have their throats slit.

What about “Ethical” or “humane” wool?

Labels that claim any product taken from animals is “humane” are designed to comfort consumers, not animals. A world-first investigation uncovered flagrant animal abuse on New Zealand’s ZQ-accredited farms despite calling itself “the world’s leading ethical wool brand.”

On ZQ-accredited farms, workers were filmed whipping struggling sheep and beating them with ski poles, cutting holes in lambs’ ears, and burning their tails off with a hot iron without pain relief. The bodies of dead sheep were scattered around the properties, including one whose remains were tossed from the second floor of a shearing shed.

No matter what claims are made, the only truly cruelty-free wool is plant wool!

Live Export – a Death Sentence for Sheep

25% of the world’s wool comes from Australia, where sheep deemed “too old” for continued wool production are still routinely prodded aboard live export ships, bound for gruesome deaths at sea or abroad.

Time and time again, investigations into Australia’s live-export industry have found animals enduring dehydration, starvation, and illness or being tossed about on rough seas, trampled by their shipmates, and suffocated by their own faeces.

Wool Is Bad for The Planet

The wool industry has gone to great lengths to brand wool as eco-friendly, but it’s an environmental disaster that has earned its “Class E” fibre ranking – the worst possible – from The Made-By Environmental Benchmark for Fibres.

Sheep are second only to cows in the global production of methane, a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. Methane is far more potent than CO2, packing over 80% more warming power in its first 20 years of release into the atmosphere. Thus, raising sheep for wool is risky for the planet’s future.

Add to this the huge amounts of deforestation undertaken to make room for sheep grazing, the toxic sheep dip and manure leeching into our water supply, and the disgusting waste from abattoirs, it’s clear that while wool may be greenwashed, it’s far from green.

Plant Wools – Soft, Warm, Green and Kind

We don’t have to harm sheep to stay cosy and warm. You can make soft, snuggly knits from various plant wool yarns, like cotton, hemp, Tencel, and linen, while innovative wool upgrades, like fleece from banana plants and weeds, are always being developed!

Check out the designers and brands making a positive difference to animals by using fresh, animal-free fibres!

What You Can Do

In addition to choosing animal-free jumpers, coats, and scarves, you can help sheep abused in the industry by urging brands to stop selling wool: