Press / PHOTOS: Tash Peterson and Stefania Ferrario Front PETA Wool Protest in Melbourne

PHOTOS: Tash Peterson and Stefania Ferrario Front PETA Wool Protest in Melbourne

13 July 2022

‘Wool Hurts’, Proclaims Group, as Model Cradles ‘Dead Lamb’ in Bourke Street Mall 

Melbourne – Braving a cold winter morning, three nearly nude People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) supporters – led by body-positive influencer Stefania Ferrario and Tash Peterson – held a demonstration in Melbourne’s bustling Bourke Street Mall as the model cradled a beaten “lamb” and the others held signs that read, “Wool Hurts” and “Wool is as Cruel as Fur”.

Three women stand in Melbourne's Bourke Street Mall. On the left, holding a sign that reads "Wool is as Cruel as Fur", the middle holding a prop lamb, the right with a sign that says "Wool Hurts"

Three women stand in Melbourne's Bourke Street Mall. On the left, holding a sign that reads "Wool is as Cruel as Fur", the middle holding a prop lamb, the right with a sign that says "Wool Hurts"

Photo credit: Jack Higgs. Video is available on request.

The graphic tableau, in which the activists sported “cuts” and “bruises” to reflect the abuse sheep endure in shearing sheds, was designed to draw attention to the investigations involving more than 100 wool industry operations around the world that have revealed egregious and systemic cruelty to sheep. Over the years, eyewitnesses have documented shearers beating sheep with clippers, punching and throwing them, and standing on the animals’ necks.

“Consumers need to know that wool hurts sheep and the planet,” says Ferrario. “From the moment a lamb is subjected to mutilations like mulesing and tail docking to the day they’re sold for mutton or herded onto a live-export ship, they’re at the mercy of humans who see them only as objects to profit from. This leads to the abuse that international PETA entities have documented time and again on farms and in shearing sheds.”

Ferrario, a passionate vegan, was inspired to lead this demonstration after seeing recent footage from inside a Victorian shearing shed which shows a badly bleeding ewe who has been injured during shearing. In the footage, the sheep is being held between the knees of a shearer, who is crudely stitching up her gaping wound without administering any pain relief. The protest directed onlookers to WoolFacts.com, a newly launched website designed to educate consumers and brands about the cruelty sheep endure in wool operations in Australia and abroad.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – notes that in one Victorian shearing shed, a shearer cut the vaginal prolapse of a female sheep, who was likely in labour, before using her own wool to wipe her blood up off the floor.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.au.

Contact:

Laura Weyman-Jones +6421 413 419; [email protected]

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