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WE ARE not in the business of endorsing stereotypes, but few will be surprised to find that the nation exporting the greatest number of sheep pelts is New Zealand. But don鈥檛 assume that when you鈥檝e seen one pelt, you鈥檝e seen them all. Some sheep have thinner skin, some have scars from illness or trauma, and lots of pelts have holes from tick bites. In our 3 February 1996 issue we reported that Industrial Research, a state-owned New Zealand company, had come up with a machine that could laser-scan pelts, spot the imperfections and help to grade the skins accordingly.

Uniformity in livestock isn鈥檛 all good, though. A report in described how the UK鈥檚 chickens had way too little genetic diversity. This paved the way for bacterial infections 鈥� once one chicken went down with the lurgy, so did the rest. Surprisingly, no programme to increase genetic variation was proposed. Instead, a consumer organisation demanded stricter inspection of chicken feed 鈥� a significant source of infections.

Of course, there would be no need for checks on pelts or food if only scarred sheep and sick chickens were set free. Our 11 February 2006 issue reported that animal rights activists were getting bolder and more violent, and that the US had recently amended a law to explicitly ban 鈥渁nimal enterprise terrorism鈥�. Hen sheds were not specifically the target of the attacks, nor sheep farms, nor even animal research laboratories. The activists had turned their attention to companies merely doing business with those responsible, in their view, for animal suffering. Even people making chicken feed or pelt-scanning lasers might need to watch their backs.