UPDATE: ANTI-mulesing group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has stepped up its campaign against the wool industry by encouraging consumers to boycott all wool products.
However, the peak body representing wool growers says it doubts an attempt by PETA to drive a wedge between Australian Wool Innovation and farmers will work.
The "Have a Heart: Don't Buy Wool" campaign - launched on PETA's website - takes aim at all wool produced from "sheep, goats or Tibetan antelopes".
It claims many sheep are "victims" of the "barbaric operation known as mulesing".
PETA asks people to sign a petition saying they will boycott wool.
It ramped up its campaign against mulesing and the wool industry research group AWI by putting a full-page spread in a rural newspaper.
"No matter what the label says, the production of any kind of wool garment causes harm to the animals from whom the wool is taken," a statement on the PETA website said.
PETA urges people to buy one of the "many alternatives to wool" - including cotton, polyester fleece, synthetic shearling, and other "cruelty-free fibres".
PETA said its latest campaign is due to AWI's broken promises over its deadline to phase out the controversial practice of mulesing by the end of 2010.
But Australian Wool Growers Association chair Martin Oppenheimer said the latest campaign and attack against AWI was a bit surprising and thought it would fail.
He said the industry was working more closely with most animal welfare groups than in the past and was taking the issue seriously.
