Native dingoes and other canids killed by the wool industry, causing ecosystem disruption
Across top wool producing country, Australia, native dingoes are trapped, poisoned and shot by the wool industry. The now extinct Tasmanian tiger was similarly persecuted, and such stories are mirrored in other wool producing countries, with native wolves in the United States and foxes in the United Kingdom killed by those profiting from sheep rearing. So why is this happening, what are the impacts on the environment, and how can we move forward?
Following the release of a campaign on dingo trapping and killing by Defend the Wild, an initiative CFJ is proud to be a part of, it’s time to explore this important issue.
A brief history: Dingoes, their native land, colonisation and the wool industry
In Australia, dingoes are considered a native species, and have lived on the land for as long as 18,000 years. The species is culturally significant to Indigenous peoples, with some regarding the dingo as their totem. Dingoes appear in Dreamtime stories and have roamed freely amongst generations of Aboriginal communities who have coexisted with them.
Less than 250 years ago, the land now referred to as Australia was colonised by the British. Wars broke out as Indigenous people tried to protect their land and way of life. Amongst this, the wool industry was introduced to the country. Severe land degradation and native edible vegetation loss was an almost immediate result of this introduction, as noted in British diaries.
Image via Foreground
The wool industry’s ongoing environmental impact: emissions, biodiversity destruction and dingo killing
After so much habitat destruction for a growing wool industry, today, the wool industry in Australia continues to use up large swathes of cleared land. This industry is land inefficient, requiring an additional 1,800 square metres more land to produce enough fibre for a sweater than both cotton or Tencel. This causes biodiversity destruction, further endangering some animal species and reducing the range of native plants growing. Too, the industry is a major contributor to the climate crisis, with significant methane emissions being released each year.
As more natural dingo habitat has been destroyed (largely for both cattle and sheep rearing industries) and killed by those profiting from environmental harm, their pack structures have been negatively impacted. As a result, more dingoes have preyed on lambs. In response, the wool industry traps, shoots and poisons dingoes, in order to protect profits generated when sheep are shorn and ultimately slaughtered by the industry itself.
We’ve made this mistake before: the cautionary tale of the Tasmanian tiger
The thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, was driven to extinction for the same reason dingoes are dying today: the wool industry killed them following claims that they were killing sheep. The last Tasmanian tiger died in captivity in 1936, mere months after the Tasmanian state government extended protection to the species. In 2011, computer modelling of the skull and jaw of the thylacine showed that the species was wrongly accused of regularly hunting sheep.
Today, enormous amounts of money are being invested into scientific efforts to bring the thylacine back, but we have not yet learned from these grave past mistakes. We continue to kill Australia’s only living, native canid.
Dingoes aren’t killing most lambs, the sheep industry is
Many lambs die in the wool and meat industry: as many as 10 million before they reach weaning age each year. However, studies – including those funded by the sheep industry itself – have shown that as little as 0.1% to 8% of lamb deaths are caused by any kind of predation. Not only is killing dingoes cruel and harmful to the ecosystem, it’s misguided.
Most young lambs in the wool industry who die before their pre-planned slaughter date die due to a mix of profit-driven selective breeding practices and cold, harsh conditions – in a country where shade and shelter for farmed animals is not mandatory.
Sheep are selectively bred to have more twins and triplets than is natural (resulting in difficult births, smaller, weaker lambs, and mother ewes who are unable to keep all of their lambs alive). Sheep are also bred into winter, as even with expected deaths caused by these unnatural industry practices, more profit is made this way. The wool industry is not interested in shooting dingoes to protect sheep as individuals, but to protect the commercial gains brought about by exploiting and slaughtering sheep themselves.
A lamb struggling to stand, alone and in the cold.
A similar story in other wool producing locations
Dingoes are not the only native canids targeted by the wool industry. In the United States, wolves and coyotes are targeted. In the United Kingdom, foxes are killed. When free-roaming animals who play a role in balancing their ecosystems threaten the bottom line of industry owners, too often, they’re wiped out.
Other native animals, including lynx, grizzly bears, native bighorn sheep, tortoises, greater sage grouse, koalas, diamond firetails, hooded robins and crested bellbirds are also negatively implicated by the wool industry across the world; both as a result of industry targeting and related habitat destruction.
A diverse array of animal life is critical to the health of ecosystems, and our current biodiversity and climate crises are interlinked.
From our report with the Center for Biological Diversity, Shear Destruction: Wool, Fashion and the Biodiversity Crisis
How do we move forward to protect ecosystems, native animals and sheep alike?
A shift beyond producing wool would help to sequester significant amounts of carbon, while massively cutting back on global methane emissions. Similarly, such a shift would help allow biodiversity to thrive again. While this move would protect the environment, native animals currently targeted by the wool industry, and sheep who are bred specifically for their commodification and exploitation, how would it work? It’s critical that a move beyond wool involve a just transition, in which those currently involved in the farming of sheep are supported into more just and sustainable work: carbon farming, plant-based farming (which many sheep farmers already partake in as well), and eco-tourism being a few options.
In the case of the fashion industry, a just transition beyond wool must mean a shift beyond not only animal-derived fibres, but fossil-fuel based fibres, too. Tencel, sustainably sourced cotton, bamboo lyocell, hemp and other wool alternatives currently exist, and more innovation is underway.
This just transition will not happen overnight. In the meantime, governments must ban the targeting of native animals by industry. Governments must also set targets for reduced biodiversity destruction and emissions, and incentivise such a transition by moving subsidies from harmful industries such as wool to those which are more environmentally and communally beneficial. Meanwhile, the fashion industry must invest in further wool-free, sustainable innovation, and set clear reduction targets for wool use.
Want to help dingoes today? Head to Defend the Wild, which just released a campaign featuring footage of dingo trapping and killing alongside Farm Transparency Project. Collective Fashion Justice is a proud member of the Defend the Wild initiative, which is currently collecting signatures calling on Australian government to protect dingoes.