Photos: PETA’s Giant ‘Sheep’ Crashes Women’s World Cup With Message for Fans to ‘Give Wool the Red Card’
21 July 2023
Sydney – Crowds entering Accor Stadium yesterday for the first Australia-hosted match of the FIFA Women’s World Cup were confronted by PETA’s “sheep” mascot, Lucy, and her anti-wool message. Dressed in a referee jersey and holding a sign that read, “Give Wool the Red Card,” Lucy posed for photos among the crowd to draw attention to the violent treatment of sheep bred for their wool on Australian farms.
Please credit Chrissie Hall. Photos can be found here.
“With thousands of Aussies rugged up against the cold and coming out to celebrate the best of Australia, Lucy is here to remind people that the world’s largest wool producer has nothing to be proud of when it comes to its treatment of sheep,” says PETA Communications Advisor Emily Rice. “From being subjected to mutilations like tail docking and mulesing as lambs and enduring rough shearing which leaves them cut and bloody to the day they’re prodded aboard a live-export ship or sold for their flesh, these gentle animals suffer immensely throughout the entirety of their lives.”
PETA entities have released seven exposés of facilities in Australia’s wool industry that document abuse at the 40-plus farms and shearing sheds that were visited across the country. Although this industry called the groundbreaking PETA US exposé of 2014 a “wake-up call”, nothing has changed. Recent footage from inside a shearing shed in Victoria shows a ewe bleeding profusely after being injured during shearing. In the footage, the shearer holds the sheep between their knees and crudely stitches up her gaping wound – without administering pain relief.
Wool production is also an environmental nightmare. The Made-By Environmental Benchmark for Fibres ranks wool as a Class E fibre – the worst possible category – based on the greenhouse gas emissions, human toxicity, eco-toxicity, and energy, water, and land use involved in its production.
Fortunately, the tide is turning against animal-derived materials, including wool. The public – especially young consumers – is objecting in droves to industries predicated on animal exploitation and slaughter. A recent study found that 41% of consumers surveyed in Australia and New Zealand want to see more vegan fashion choices. PETA is encouraging football players and fans alike to score big for animals by leaving animal-derived fabrics out of their wardrobes.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.au or follow the group on Facebook and Instagram.