2000 D uring the winter months, animal activists traditionally focus our attention on the fur industry, confronting the dying idea that human vanity is more important than animal lives. Unfortunately, fur is not the only product that animal abusers aggressively promote during the winter. Aside from fur, wool is the animal-based clothing most commonly associated with winter.
Many people believe wool is an almost benign product because it can be obtained without killing.
But in reality, the wool industry is no different from the egg or dairy industries. While some suggest that sheep are naturally burdened with too much wool, and shearing it off is actually a favor to them, scientific breeding techniques have ensured that these animals have become wool-producing machines. In contrast, a freshly sheared sheep is more susceptible to cold than a naked human, and as a result, many sheep die of pneumonia and hypothermia shortly after being sheared. The sheds where sheep are sheared are no different from the killing lines of a slaughterhouse. Shearers are paid by the volume and as a result, sheep are commonly treated with careless impatience and often lacerated and injured during the shearing process.