Wellington — In a new PETA video spot launching online today, footage of shearers beating, stomping on, and punching terrified, struggling sheep in wool facilities across New Zealand plays as quotes from the country’s wool industry insiders appear on the screen—providing a damning visual rebuttal to the bogus claims touting the industry’s “incredibly high animal welfare standards.”
The video comes on the heels of two explosive PETA exposés spanning more than 30 wool operations in New Zealand—including 11 “ZQ-certified” facilities—which uncovered widespread, systemic abuse. ZQ-certified wool—which is sold by IKEA, Allbirds, Fjällräven, Smartwool, Loro Piana, Helly Hansen, among others—claims to be “the world’s leading ethical wool brand.”
PETA investigations revealed shearers beating, kicking, and throwing petrified sheep down chutes and slamming them into floors; workers cutting holes in lambs’ ears and burning and cutting their tails off with a hot iron; workers crudely stitching up gaping wounds without painkillers; and bodies of dead sheep scattered around the properties—and the violence and cruelty went unquestioned by supervisors and other workers. The new video juxtaposes this footage with industry officials’ assertions that New Zealand wool operations take the “responsibility of caring for our animals very seriously,” and that ZQ-certified facilities “comply with rigorous animal welfare guidelines.”