As part of a multipronged endeavor to lift the curtain on New Zealand’s horrific and shameful wool industry, PETA Asia-Pacific has released its new undercover investigation into severe animal suffering at a sheep slaughter house belonging to Silver Fern Farms, which buys sheep from farms that raise them for food or wool, including ZQ-certified farms.

The damning undercover footage shows workers using head-only electrical stunning ineffectively on sheep before severing the animals’ necks with a blade, which left the sheep still conscious, as shown by their twitching ears and tense heads. A veterinary professor of animal welfare who reviewed the footage noted that the movement of sheep’s ears and tense heads suggested that the “stunning was sometimes inadequate” and that it holds a risk of consciousness and suffering. The footage casts a shadow on ZQ’s claim that it offers “the world’s leading ethical wool.”

© Scoop Media