starvation. price for government and corporate. selling out of the country. dead donkey's fear know how you know us. start september 18th on d w the. winter weather in germany can be called the temperature often drops below freezing it's time to get out the room clothes perhaps even a sweater made of merino wool. lisa tights cut only fluffy and it isn't it she is up to how touch maybe you know merino wool is comfortable are the few 1000000 of its cuddly and so her share of. merino wool is popular right now here in

berlin fashion week fashion designers rave about its qualities. 60 mamas it's very breathable so you stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter so my entire balance. merino wool is also a practical fabric. and much of it when you sweat it dries fast and it doesn't smell and you don't have to wash it often it's natural and renewable what's in the washer. most of the merino wool used for clothing sold in europe comes from a stray there are about 17000000 the rino sheep there and they're bred to produce as much will as possible. to. get an animal that can't adapt and you strain environment so it requires all these interventions by humans one of these procedures called musing involves removing parasite prone skin folds from lamb's critics a mule. is painful for the shape and completely unnecessary.

merino wool is popular with european consumers it's used to make switches coats outdoor clothing and even shoes. as fits you can get feels great functional underwear made of merino wool is excellent in terms of how the shop yesterday and what about the sheep what's important for you as you know what it's so that's not up to us about. they should be raised and sure humanely and it's off. for an instance where does merino wool come from. somewhere in the mountains i think. i don't know exactly of all the hell they have. many wood products don't list their source

merino sheep are also raised in germany nearly half a 1000000 of them. we've come to a sheep farm in southern germany to talk to some experts about merinos words so they're hardy animals and easy to raise. but they don't have much in common with their ancestors which will likely imported from north africa to spain in the middle ages. the original marine has had extremely fine wool. but over the centuries they've been bred to develop more skin folds and that produces more. of the. most german merinos a bridge for meat production their skin has no wrinkles and their wool is course. but was. afraid. we get

a lot of rain here and there was perfectly suited to those conditions and. of. course wall helps to keep out the moisture out in full. like a rain coat exactly. is used to make carpets insulating materials and even seat covers for public transport vehicles the wool that's used in the manufacture of clothing comes from other countries argentina produces about 4 percent of the world right total so to south africa and new zealand at 88 percent a stranger is by far the largest producer. merino wool is a major a strange an export turnover and 2018 was equivalent to over 2300000000 euros. a merino even appears on a stray unicorns but the dark side of the story is that the sheep bred to produce

excessive amounts of wool and there are serious concerns about the way there were a east. the fop was foundation for animal welfare has been investigating those conditions. as consumers want wool clothing that's fluffy soft and cuddly what's the reality behind all production this is the theory t. it there are real problems with animal welfare and australian sheep foreign relations. to. activists are particularly concerned about a process called mills ing which is designed to protect sheep from fly maggots and these hidden camera video as you can see how strips of skin are removed from the buttocks without the use of anesthetics. as long as the younger flushed you can just imagine how much that hurts or perhaps

the name is intense and it lasts for several days no. more the 90 percent of all will comes from a shape that was subjected to this procedure. disaster does you won't find a lot of musing free sweaters in the shops. how can consumers find out whether the sheep have been raised humanely. we went online posed as a buyer and asked german clothing manufacturers and stores with a day off for news in free products. we contacted $34.00 companies and got a variety of responses. to don't buy australian wool 6 intend to use mules in free will in the future 10 trust their suppliers who say they don't use musing. 7 try to convince customers that the animals are well treated 5 didn't answer our question for didn't answer at all

and no one talked about supply chain transparency. our test indicates that it's tough for german consumers to get straight answers to these questions some of the companies gave us a general response or tried to change the subject to different topics. later one company said that it had mistakenly sent us a reply in 10. but for a different question. perhaps official quality assurance can help the consumer initiative is an ngo that promotes sustainable production and consumption with backing from the german government we asked whether the seals used by the wool industry provide proof that the sheep are being treated humanely. we have the woolmark seal there are 3

main categories but they don't address the issue of animal welfare that the 4th. of . july is a very well known eco label but it also doesn't deal with animal welfare aspect of the sport just couldn't in textiles label focuses on ecological standards for. the global organic textile standard certification has a very good reputation it indicates that producers have met very high social ecological and animal welfare standards in the production chain so you won't find it on products very often. but how can consumers inform themselves effectively about these products if it. does labor vision is they cannot check these labels which provide a lot of information but the companies should do more to take into account the concerns that german consumers have about animal welfare of war.

in other words most of these labels provide no information about whether the animals are treated humanely so consumers are still largely in the dark. now we're on our way to australia where much of the world's wool is produced we want to find out more about that surgical procedure called him using. the state of new south wales is home to about 27000000 merino sheep. they've even been immortalized in statues. thank. veterinarians at this farm owned by the university of sydney have been studying the effects of meals and. was i there trying to come up with ways to reduce playing enjoying the procedure. because she has ripple skin here very close to the ownership over

a few related some features so what we have is takes and you know. and try and make a baby really seem like this the best that fleischer could fly strike is the killer of you didn't. leave if there are no folds of skin on the sheep's backside the flies won't be able to lay their eggs there. was a topical anesthetic reduces the pain in the affected area for 24 hours and also helps the wounds to heal based on this research some sheep farmers have now decided to start using anesthetics join the mules in procedure. animal rights activists demand that mules and be banned outright but the veterinarians here say that's not a viable alternative at this point was. after

one year of your musing what we had was for you see things like that. and let you go fishing. experts estimate the without meals into 1000000 she would die each year of maggot infestation farmers are trying to get rid of the skin folds through selective breeding. they will have planted a body and last recall especially around the bridge area in the bear breech area hopefully and i feel like they've removed. how many years do you going to tell you take another decay. you see you already still plenty of people. selective breeding does seem to offer a long term solution to the problem of excessive skin folds. now we're on our way to talk to a man who's been documenting the abuse of sheep on farms for decades. when not going to use his full name but peter has worked on several sheep fans and has some

horrific stories to tell. these photographs show sheet that have become injured all seriously ill but have not yet been put out of their misery for economic reasons. and managers keeping animals alive just because they're going to get another for a short are going to give our another land and unfortunately on these farms which have the bad welfare that's the mentality. how often does this happen. it's absolutely not everywhere but it's not really a crisis not which is. wrong a lot more properties and what. the industry like to have you're below. it now and no one's going to admit to that peter says he's also seen this sort of abuse on farms that have been checked by animal welfare inspectors. the property owners know they're coming in they'll come in. and everything looks hunky dory

everything looks good on the dock and i get sharon like that sharon just wear the property and i wouldn't want to show them that i actually don't get free rides and so it's really in the case of you know who checks the check out. if regular inspections don't help to promote animal welfare perhaps the answer lies in better cooperation between sheep farmers and clothing manufacturers we've traveled to a farm on the astray an island of tasmania. there are 11000 merinos here she braided david taylor stopped using musing for years ago. one of tyler's best customers is here to observe the shearing process. stefan krauss is the product manager for a german outerwear company krauser is satisfied that tayla shape of being raised humanely. unfortunately a lot of fun are still used mules in without anesthetics it's horrible we simply

couldn't imagine having our products associated with such a procedure. in the. whole world of course titles shape still face the threat of maggot infestation untreated the maggots would borrow under the sheets skin which is also painful and deadly but tyler has come up with a process to prevent this he treats the labs with pesticides it's expensive and time consuming but it works tyler says that the chemicals have no side effects and cannot be detected in the lambs wool also he she has all of the sheets several times a year in the affected area these new concepts have not yet caught on with other farmers in fact they've criticized his innovative approach. what think you're an idiot people are going doing this for 200 years and they've been used to doing something you know are generations of being doing something so it's not for someone to come in and so you can do all this why it's a bit of a big pill to swallow. tireless she has his sheep just like other farmers do it

takes 2 to 3 minutes for each one he says it's important to cause the animals as little stress as possible. now i have all the say pretty late in my job they felt the pull of all of a culpable there right away happily. until within. this year is compressed says $150.00 shades the day each animal deals an average of 6 kilos of whom. the material is then sorted by quality and pressed into bales about half the wool is sent to clients in germany the rest is sold at auction. but meals in free farms like tieless are the exception in australia that's a problem for clothing manufacturers that want to make sure that the wool they use is produced humanely. visiting how do

things look right now. our company needs a lot more mules in free world so we're trying to convince other farmers to use the methods that david taylor does in itself they suresh legalities. some mules in free wool is sold at auction. we've come to the astray you know we'll exchange in sydney to find out more. the total of 320000000 kilograms of roll wool are produced every year in australia the guild is worth the equivalent of about $2300000000.00 euros. andrew blanch is managing director of a large boat production company and says merino wool is a key product for his clients. to a very big part of the australian economy.