At first I thought it was a North American thing, because we can be a very commercially competitive nation, often putting production over morals. However I learned that the harming of sheep is widespread in UK wool production too. I still kept an air of disbelief in the back of mind, until I was invited to an event, as part of my political life, that included a sheep shearing demonstration. In this demonstration I watched as a sheep was lifted off the ground and essentially "suplexed" onto the ground. The sheerer unhappy with the sheep's percieved lack of cooperation chose to then repeatedly punch the sheep while she set about sheering it. The uncooperative sheep we repeatedly cut and was bleeding significantly when the sheering was done and ran for cover. The sheering assistant hid the bloodied wool under a pile of other wool to hide it. This was at a public, family, event!
Then recently the Guardian UK went undercover to show the abuse that UK farms were committing against the sheep there. Again, violently punching and kicking the animals, forcibly dragging them around and sheering with no guides, causing cuts and bloodied wool.

The picture I was sold as a kid of the caring farmer, carefully sheering a sheep for its wool, and the relieved sheep smiling after, is a lie I bought because it was convenient.

There is some, but very little natural wool production where wool is collected from sheep that are naturally shedding/molting. But this production is too slow for most, and many sheep themselves have been bred to overproduce wool at a rate to which they can't shed/molt. We've done this to them, and ourselves.[/QUOTE]


When I was young I thought documentaries were always truthful and accurate. Not too many years ago it was pointed out to me that ALL documentaries have a perspective, a bias, some more obvious than others, and that this should always be taken into account when accepting or rejecting in part or in total what is presented.