Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
PETA Strikes Again
I recently read an interesting but outrageous article in the Wall Street Journal regarding the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).
It appears that PETA has gotten their claws into retailers such as Duluth Trading Company and Lucky Brands and their marketing of items made of wool. PETA recently erected billboards in Boston and New York’s Times Square that display a nude picture of actress Alicia Silverstone with the phrase “Leave Wool Behind.” PETA and the Humane Society of the US is alleging that shearing sheep is inhumane and harmful to the animals. Most veterinary practitioners recommend an annual shearing. Weighed down by too much wool a sheep can suffer heat stress, inability to feed babies, lack of vision and infestation.
Both companies have backed off their “compliance” with PETA demands upon learning the truth of the matter, but how many lemmings have the image of bloody sheep in their head? This movement can only hurt ranchers who have a vested interest in maintaining healthy, happy sheep and providing clean wool as they have for centuries.
These animals rights groups do much more harm than good. Yes, I’m lumping them all together because of their shotgun approach to animal welfare. My local Humane Society does an exemplary job but the Mothership, like all these groups, seem to exist for the benefit of their executives.
How many contributed dollars went into the large billboard in Times Square?
I wonder where they stand on the extermination of rats in NYC?
Published in General
I wager that the number is relatively small. I think conservatives overestimate PETA’s influence. I think much of PETA’s PR strategy is reliant on generating outrage from conservatives, and if more conservatives ignored these stories then PETA would see a drop in donation revenues.
When my sister in law lived in Texas, the neighbor’s farm housed a sheep that didn’t get shorn. She found that the sheep was so wool-heavy that it fell over and couldn’t get up! She found it by the fence and had to call them – God gave us sheep and wool for clothing – they probably don’t realize the livelihood made from creating warm wool products across the world. I hope these companies and others ignore the ridiculousness.
I am against PETA but this post raised an interesting question: Has human use of domestic animals modified them into ways that make their continued domestic use essential to their survival? Personally I think PETA’s end game is human extinction. But the example of the sheep’s problems when not sheared doesn’t answer the question of how sheep would be different if they were never sheared in the first place? And is that better or worse for the sheep?
How many sheep would there be if people didn’t raise and care for them? Same for all kinds of cattle. Most of these kinds of animals are successful because people go to great lengths to breed, feed and protect them against predators. Something our urban born and bred fellows are mostly ignorant of. Something to think about, I think.
I am not so much outraged as admiring. Their ability to ‘message’ far above their weight-class is a marvel. Also, naked chicks.
That they are idiots seems hardly worth mentioning.
Young Alicia Silverstone, or current Alicia Silverstone?
The radical eco-Left deifies natural ecosystems, not individual organisms. If an ecosystem’s existence is reliant on human manipulation then there is no ethical impediment to allowing nature to eliminate that system once the manipulation has been removed. The population of domestic sheep is just such an ecosystem.
Got it in one. We live in sheep country, and a lot of our friends whose kids are in 4H raise and show them. These things were bred over now thousands of years to grow wool. It’s downright cruel to leave them unshorn in hot summers. If they weren’t tended and guarded by people, they’d be extinct in a generation.
Current, but she chose a good photographer.
But we’d have all the wolves we could eat!
FIFY
And a hundred times as true for domestic fowl.
Well done. Know it by heart. Rolf Harris, though . . . . urgh.
As a person who shears my own sheep, every single bloody (so to speak) year, I feel competent to weigh in here. (Also, as the person who probably functions as one of the more prominent supporters of what those in Washington County view as animal rights activism . . . ).
Yep. Those sheep need to be shorn. Yep. Sometimes they get nicked in the process. Nobody likes that. But that’s what antibiotic, antiseptic, and anti-fly sprays are for. (Some of the sprays are blue, and some of them are red. When I really go to town with them, what we end up with is something we, in Washington County call “patriotic sheep.” Red, White, and Blue. PETA probably wouldn’t understand the reference.)
Very few nicks on my sheep. I’m not trying to win a shearing contest, so I take my time. Only one serious injury in thirty years of shearing, and that by a professional I hired. (Never again.) A 5-lb bag of flour (stop the bleeding), a wadded-up clean washcloth, a pair of old panty hose (compression bandage), and she was fixed right up. Followed up with a course of antibiotic shots. All was well.
PETA would do well to focus on more reasonable, and actual, stories and instances of animal abuse. I could get behind them on most of those.
One of my rams (Cricket):
Yeah, I know. I was actually looking for the one with the line about being in the bar after and nobody ever admits to calling for tar.
That won’t happen because of organizations like AETH (Animals for the Ethical Treatment of Humans). A recent rebuttal Twitter post from the AETH official spokes-mammal (who happens to be a sheep) read as follows:
“Baaa. Baa-baaa-Bleet! Babababaaaaaaaa. BaHAAAA babaaaaa.”
I think the post says it all. Nothing to worry about . . .
???
(Some version of the lyrics is here if you want a quick fix and don’t want to listen: http://unionsong.com/u007.html)
Somewhere, I have an entire (old) cassette tape of shearing songs. I must look it up . . .
Are there any sports teams with sheep as a mascot? Just wonderin’ here. No, rams don’t count.
That’s the one. 😁
Here’s a story on Shrek, the Merino sheep who escaped shearing for six years in the Australian outback. I can only imagine. I’ve had my own dealings with wool maggots, blowflies, and various and sundry other treasures of hot weather and farm life, and none of my sheep have ever gone for more than a year without being shorn. Poor guy. He was lucky to be rounded up.
Merino sheep are incredibly difficult to shear. We raised them ourselves for a number of years, and at one point we had about 100 of them (a hat tip to Washington County PA, which at one time in the history of the United States, raised more sheep than any other county in the country, most of them Merinos). They are like the dog breed Shar-Pei, in that they are wearing a skin suit that’s about 12 sizes to big for them, and they are wrinkly beyond belief (you can see the wrinkles in the final picture in the linked article. Prior to that, they were probably wise to put a “jacket” on him). Shearing Merinos is a constant battle between smoothing out the wrinkles, and trying not to cut the wrong way (that being, with the wrinkles rather than across them) so as to nick the sheep in the course of the shearing strokes. In addition, their wool is super-fine and greasy. It’s almost impossible any more, in the United States (with the possible exception of parts of Texas) to find a shearer who’s willing to take on Merinos. I sheared all our Merino sheep myself, and I’ve demonstrated it at sheep and wool festivals in the area, although I’d rather participate in the weaving and spinning contests when it comes down to it. And I must stipulate that wool clippers are, like safety razors for humans, much safer than they used to be.
Still, it’s a bit of a challenge.
Oh, come on. I’ve thought for years that it would be so easy to dream up a fantasy football Sheep All Star team–Starting with Danny Merino, the quarterback, and moving onto Border Leicester Hayes, and also including Tony Dorset. I’m sure there are more. Don’t get me started. Or, hand me a beer and I’ll keep going.
I know from nothin’ about sheep rearing or sheep shearing. Heck, probably all know about it comes from that which I saw in the 1960 movie The Sundowners starring Robert Mitchum & Deborah Kerr. There are several scenes in the movie featuring commercial sheep shearing including a competition between the two top shearers. I couldn’t find any of those scenes, but I did come across this review of the movie (9 minutes long) which includes some clips (pun intended) involving sheep shearing. If you haven’t seen it, the movie is well worth a watch.
The ASPCA already does that.
The whole point of PETA is that they think the ASPCA isn’t radical enough, and their business strategy is to solicit donations from people who don’t understand the difference between the organizations, thereby diverting money away from the ASPCA and/or local animal shelters.
(The Humane Society of the United States is another offender. Like PETA they solicit donations from unsuspecting animal lovers but they don’t actually operate any animal rescue facilities.)
Got it. And please don’t keep going.:)
In his book The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan makes the fascinating case for seeing sheep (and cows, dogs, apples and other domesticated organisms) as parasites. Having evolved to please humans, the animals, plants and even microorganisms (yeast) we’ve domesticated are—when measured by reproductive success and sheer global biomass—unbelievably successful. Human beings take on a lot of the work of being an animal—finding food, seeking out mates, finding shelter, fighting disease—and if the price is a yearly shearing, it’s infinitesimal compared with what a wild sheep, fowl or fruit tree has to do to survive.
Go Cricket!
OK. But can I have the beer, anyway? I promise to shut up. Just gimme the beer.
Yes. Please support your local animal shelters. Not the HSUS. Or the ASPCA.
What’s wrong with the ASPCA? They operate shelters, help fund shelters they don’t operate, sell pet health insurance, and also provide relief services for domestic animals during natural disasters (as does the American Humane Society, another organization that suffers from the confusion caused by PETA and HSUS).
I am biased towards local organizations whose effects I can see, and whose people I know. I suggest people who would like to make a difference start there. That’s all.