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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
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SEPTEMBER 2005
Wool industry & live transport developments
“If animals have been subjected to cruelties in their breeding, transport, slaughter, or in their general welfare, meat from them is considered impure and unlawful to eat,” taught the late imam B.A. Hafiz al-Masri of the Shah Jehan Mosque in England, quoting parts of the Q’ran and Hadiths (sayings) of the Prophet which forbid cruelty to animals.
Exposing crulety in the shipment of animals to the Middle East for slaughter, and mulesing, the practice of cutting away skin flaps from the anal region of sheep to prevent flystrike, PETA in June 2005 tried to air a paid ad depicting mulesing and quoting al-Masri on Al Jazeera, the Qatar TV network known for gruesome war coverage, but the ad was refused.
The Australian Wool Growers Association in August 2005 broke with the rest of the Australian sheep industry and agreed to end mulesing by 2010 if PETA would lift a boycott of Australian wool exports. Australian agriculture minister Peter McGauran and the Australian Sheep & Wool Industry Taskforce rejected the deal. ASWIT is a coalition including the National Farmers Federation and WoolProducers, the largest organization representing the sheep trade.
Australia suspended livestock exports to Saudi Arabia in August 2003, after Saudi officials refused to allow the Cormo Express to unload 57,000 allegedly diseased sheep. The sheep were marooned at sea for nearly three months until Eritrea at last accepted the 44,000 survivors. On May 5, 2005, Australian agriculture minister Warren Truss signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia which requires that live cargoes will be unloaded into quarantine on land within 36 hours of arrival at the port of Jeddah.
Animal advocates had hoped that new international maritime safety regulations taking effect in 2007 would curtail live exports, since many of the older livestock ships do not meet the rules, but Welland Rural Exports of Australia in early July 2005 committed $47 million to building a new livestock ship with capacity for 6,500 cattle or 26,000 sheep.