Posted on 09/27/2005 9:37:54 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
US animal rights activists stripped off in the first of a worldwide blitz of nude demonstrations to protest Australia's treatment of sheep.
A small, but committed, group of members of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) demonstrated outside the Australian embassy in Washington.
In the coming days PETA plans nude protests outside Australian embassies in Vienna, Berlin, Paris and Sao Paulo.
In Washington, four women and one man stripped down to g-strings and painted Australian flagson their bodies.
Five other activists held large gruesome photos of bloody sheep that had been mulesed.
There were no arrests or brushes with the law, although it is illegal for women to go topless in public in Washington DC so the female PETA members risked nudity laws.
More media members than activists were there to cover the spectacle.
"We definitely attracted a lot of attention," PETA spokesperson and one of the nude protesters, Brandi Valladolid, told AAP.
"Of course, protests like these are designed to create attention and it was a big success.
"We had 13 media outlets there."
PETA renewed its campaign against the Australian wool industry following a 45-day moratorium to allow key Australian wool groups to examine a PETA proposal to end the year-long war between the parties.
The PETA plan called for the phasing out of mulesing and designing more humane methods for the live export of sheep.
The two major wool groups in Australia - Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) and WoolProducers - rejected the plan, so PETA this week reinstated its worldwide campaign.
Valladolid said employees at the Australian embassy showed interest in the demonstration.
"We noticed a lot of people in the embassy glued to their windows watching the demonstration wondering what the hell was going on," she said.
Mulesing is a technique Australian farmers use to prevent flystrike in sheep, which can be fatal. Mulesing involves stripping pieces of flesh from the animal's rear end to prevent maggot infestation.
Nude sheep? Isn't that animal abuse? Considering the sexual preferences of most PETA activists, it is almost certain.
Damn, I'll be thinking of lamb chops all night.
Nekkid and sheep? This sounds more like some jihadistan..
Hey, PETA-Better to eat a sheep, than be one.
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