The Patagonia brand always claimed that they were using ethically sourced wool from Argentina. A claim vastly relayed by the press and specialized blogs –including us when we were introducing the brand’s new Merino baselayers-.
We are, indeed, talking about sustainably sourced wool from the south of Argentina. But the allegations of animal cruelty, clearly backed up by the video published by PETA, made us question the notion of “ethically sourced wool”. In that horrifying video, we can see a lamb being mutilated and skinned alive while fully conscious; other pictures show the overcrowded pens where the sheeps are kept and can barely move.
Responding to the PETA investigation, Patagonia claimed that they were unaware of the animal abuses by Ovis 21, their Argentinian suppliers, and announced that they would stop getting their wool from them. The question of wool recollection was not resolved, though. Patagonia affirmed that they would keep using wool on their clothes, rejecting the idea that animal cruelty was essential to its production. In the other hand, PETA and other anti-animal cruelty associations affirm that this kind of abuses are widespread among wool producers and will keep happening in other places, because “there is no such thing as humane wool”.
The association for the protection of the animals put an online petition to protest against the use of wool by Patagonia.
