New Video Footage Shows Widespread Cruelty in New Zealand Wool Industry…AGAIN.

A second PETA Asia-Pacific investigation into New Zealand’s wool industry reveals rampant abuse at every stage of farm operations—from terrified lambs enduring agonizing mutilations without any pain relief to shearers punching struggling sheep in the face and slamming them to the floor. Broadcast-quality footage is available here and images are available here.

The damning undercover footage comes just weeks after PETA Asia-Pacific exposed pervasive cruelty at facilities producing ZQ-certified wool, generating international coverage—and prompting various wool industry representatives to attempt to frame the abuse as isolated incidents. PETA’s new investigation—which spans 23 additional wool operations throughout the country—shows shearers beating, kicking, and throwing petrified sheep; workers cutting holes in lambs’ ears and burning their tails off with a hot iron; and the bodies of dead sheep scattered around the properties, including one whose remains were tossed from the second floor of a shearing shed.

A shearer punches a struggling sheep in the face during shearing.

 Credit: PETA Asia-Pacific

“PETA has exposed that beating, punching, kicking, stomping, and cutting are routine in the wool industry,” says PETA Senior Vice President Jason Baker. “No label can guarantee humane treatment. You can call it ZQ, RWS, or anything else, but if you are against animal abuse, don’t wear wool.”

PETA has submitted the new evidence, along with documentation from 11 ZQ-certified facilities, in a formal complaint to the Ministry for Primary Industries, urging it to investigate and file appropriate charges for apparent violations of laws prohibiting cruelty to animals.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETAAsia.com or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.

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