The animal rights group, PETA, has been dragging outdoor companies into an Australian Merino wool boycott, apparently without notifying the companies. In a series of separate announcements, PETA stated that Timberland and Smartwool had joined their fight against the practice of mulesing and would be boycotting Australian Merino wool. While neither Timberland nor Smartwool uses Australian wool in any of their products and neither company endorses the practice of mulesing, it is also true that neither company told PETA that they would be a part of any boycott.
In PETAs release involving Timberland, the organization stated that after reviewing video footage showing the “stunningly cruel treatment of sheep at the hands of the Australian wool industry,” Timberland told PETA that it “will not knowingly sell products which contain Australian merino wool until the practice of mulesing and live exports stop.”
BOSS contacted Timberlands corporate communications manager, Robin Giampa, who said that this quote did not come from her or her office and Timberland does not participate in boycotts. “We prefer to constructively engage with both parties and keep communications channels open,” she said. “We prefer not to engage in something that destructive.”
Giampa also stated that Timberland does not use much wool in the first place and none of it is from Australia.
PETA has also made two separate announcements concerning Smartwools recent contract with New Zealand Merino growers.
The first simply commends Smartwool for their efforts at ending mulesing, while the second states that PETA is “calling for the resignations of Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) chief Ian McLachlan and the groups board of directors. The call for the board to step down comes on the heels of a deal between New Zealand wool farmers and U.S. retail group SmartWool, which shows that solutions can be found-and can be profitable-if farmers representatives exercise initiative rather than standing in the way of progress ”
Gardiner Flannigan, Smartwools communications manager, told BOSS, “We began negotiating the recently announced contract extension with our NZ wool growers at least six months prior to any contact that PETA made with SmartWool. The primary element of our revolutionary agreement is establishing a financial benchmark that allows both SmartWool and the wool growers the luxury of economic forecasting for wool production and cost, as well as quality standards for the growers to work toward
“The mulesing component of our contract is but one small element of the arrangement, a point that PETA grossly misrepresents,” continued Flannigan.
“We understand that our wool growers will incur additional expense to better monitor the health of their sheep and because of this we are willing to help defer some of these additional costs From our perspective, the Australian wool growers appear to be working diligently to address the mulesing issue.”
>>> Bottom line is that both Smartwool and Timberland support initiatives to protect the health and well-being of the animals that grow the wool, but neither of the companies wishes to be aligned with the radical, and what they view as deceptive, practices at PETA
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