Bloomberg reports that a ban on mohair by dozens of global clothing retailers is threatening a R1.5bn industry in SA, the world’s biggest producer.
Almost 70 clothing companies worldwide have announced that they will stop using mohair following the release earlier in May of video footage from 12 Angora goat farms in the Karoo region. The footage showed goats being dragged by the legs or horns and sustaining injuries from shearing. A worker decapitating a goat also featured. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), which produced the video, alleges that abuse in the mohair industry is "rampant and routine" and inflicts "unspeakable suffering". While industry organisation Mohair SA announced earlier in May it would immediately suspend mohair from the farms implicated in the video, it said it considered much of the report to have been incorrect and misrepresenting the industry. There are about 1,000 Angora goat farms in SA, employing an estimated 30,000 people. It is too early to determine the long-term impact of the ban, said Deon Saayman, MD of Mohair SA.
- Read this report in full at BusinessLive
- Read too, Mohair intensifies probe into animal abuse, at City Press
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