One of the most popular excuses humans use to justify animal exploitation is that it is natural. And one of the most popular examples of the "naturalistic excuses" is the wool industry.
Humans seriously claim or ignorantly believe that shearing sheeps’ wool is some kind of a symbiosis. They are right. It’s a symbiosis between the world’s two best friends, humanity and greed.

Humans’ extreme alienation from nature is being forgotten when they feel the need to justify their exploitation. Then, all of a sudden, every human is a natural born naturalist. But they will never consider giving up clothes, shoes, sunglasses, cars, air conditioners, and cell phones.

Facts, consistency and coherency are marginal. No matter how ridicules their excuses are, they don’t care as long as they got something to say when they are asked about consuming animals.

Parasitism

Many people believe that shearing helps sheeps who might otherwise be burdened with too much wool. But without human interference, sheeps grow just enough wool to protect themselves from temperature extremes. Shearing their fleece leaves the sheeps without any defense from direct sun in the summer or cold temperature in the winter.

Wool is not taken from sheeps that live pleasant lives on a lush grassy knoll. It is a misconception that wool is simply a by-product of the meat industry. Sheeps are raised for financial gain and the wool provides a very significant economic part that actually maintains the meat industry.

Selective Breeding

Sheeps were domesticated about 10,000 years ago and ever since then are bred to suit human desires and bear little resemblance to their wild ancestors.
To provide more surface area for wool, Merinos, the most common type of sheep used in the wool industry, are bred for excess skin wrinkles.
This unnatural overload of wool causes the sheeps to suffer and to die of heat exhaustion during hot months. The wrinkles also collect urine and moisture which attract flies. The flies lay eggs in the folds of the skin, and the hatched maggots literally eat the sheeps alive.

While in full fleece, the sheeps who were selectively bred to grow much more wool than is needed, find it difficult to cope with local irritations and usually rub against a post or rail (sheeps rarely groom each other). In the absence of a suitable object to rub against, they will roll on their backs. When in full fleece or heavily pregnant they may fail to get up, and if not seen, will slowly die.

Mulesing

In Australia, where most of the wool comes from, an extremely violent operation is preformed to prevent "flystrike" called-"mulesing", which is cutting huge strips of skin off the lambs’ backs, while they are fully conscious. This is done to cause smooth and severely scarred skin that won't harbor fly eggs. Yet the bloody wounds often get flystrike before they heal. Despite the evidence that mulesing kills many sheep, the mutilation continues.

The true horror of flystrike cannot be described or imagined. The sheeps’ flesh is slowly consumed by thousands of swarming maggots.
The sheeps become so distressed that they cannot eat, drink or sleep.
Sheeps can die within a few days, but many live like that for up to several weeks, often in the burning sun without relief of shade. This results in millions of slow agonizing deaths each year.

Going through the brutal mutilation of mulesing, or suffering from a horrible flystrike, and sometimes both, this is the fate of millions of sheeps every year.

Shearing

Most of the sheeps are shorn for the first time at 14-15 months old, and then annually.
Humans like to believe that shearing causes little or no discomfort, that the wool is shaved from the outside of the sheep, much like a haircut, leaving the animal cool and comfortable for the summer. However, wild sheeps have the ability to shed their own wool during the warm months and retain it during the winter, and shearing is nothing like shedding.
The sheeps are thrown on their backs and restrained while an electric razor is aggressively running over their bodies.
In the mechanical shearing, sheeps are held in restraints with tight clamps on their faces and then are sheared.
Whether sheared manually or mechanically, cuts in the skin are very common. In many cases shearing can injure teats, genitals, other appendages and ligaments.

Wool is usually removed from sheeps during the early summer. However, many times it is done very early in spring or winter. Wet, windy and cold conditions can result in severe diseases, and in some cases, death. It takes 7-8 weeks for the coat to grow sufficiently to protect the sheeps.
Naked to the world, sheeps are put back out to pasture where they can suffer severe sunburn or freeze.

The Rape

The oestrus of each ewe may be manipulated so that they give birth at the same time. This is a much more convenient option for farmers. Progesterone sponges are inserted into the vagina (the sponge insertion can cause damage) and are left in for two weeks and then pregnant mares' serum gonadotrophin (PMSG) is injected into each ewe. Teaser male sheeps are often used to “help” the whole process along.

Semen is collected from the males by giving them painful electrical shocks via a probe that's driven deep into their anus.

The Lambs

Under natural conditions sheeps reproduce every spring after a five month pregnancy. They produce a single lamb with each gestation (twins are relatively rare in nature). But genetic selection and intensive feeding have created a situation whereby twins and even triplets are commonplace, although sheeps only have two teats and can only feed one or two lambs.

Lambing time has also been manipulated. Instead of taking place in spring, between 10% and 15% of the annual lamb “crop” is now produced between December and the end of February. The aim is to get the lambs to market ahead of the competitors. Within days of their birth, the surviving youngsters are doomed to face the winter weather.

During lambing, "spare" lambs are forced to be adopted by ewes with a spare teat (ewes that their lambs died). One way that this is done is to skin a dead infant and put the skin over the "spare" lamb - it is hoped that this will persuade the ewe that the new lamb is in fact her own. Sometimes the ewe is held by her neck in 'stocks' for up to three days to prevent her from rejecting the newly born lamb.

After shearing, not all the lambs recognize their mother without her coat and the ewe may not be able to recognize her lambs correctly because their scent was changed. If shearing is done before lambing, the handling of the ewe, close to her due date, may cause birth difficulties.

Tail Docking

Shortly after birth, lambs are subjected to a very painful mutilation: tail-docking. The tails of all lambs are cut off, mainly to reduce the urine and faeces staining, which attracts sheep blowflies. The tails are either cut off with a knife, or made to “drop off” by applying tight rubber rings to restrict the blood supply.

Castration

The males are castrated in order to prevent unplanned breeding and to reduce aggression, even though many lambs are slaughtered before they reach sexual maturity.

Identification

Teeth-Grinding

Aging sheeps are subjected to "teeth-grinding" - an unanesthetized procedure that according to sheep farmers reduces tooth loss and extends the sheeps’ “productive” life. Humans use an electrical grinder to wear down the sheeps’ teeth.
Another method involves using the edge of a disc cutter to cut right through the teeth near the level of the gums. This terrifying and painful procedure exposes the sensitive pulp cavities and causes the teeth to bleed.

Lameness

One of the main causes of pain and discomfort for the sheeps is lameness. And one of the main causes of lameness is foot-rot. Research has shown that foot-rot in sheeps can result in higher death rate and increased susceptibility to fly strike. It spreads from sheep to sheep via pasture or bedding contaminated with bacteria from the feet of infected sheeps.

Sheeps’ tails are docked, they are raped, castrated, mulesed, sheared, prodded, packed, shipped and slaughtered.
Every year, ewes experience the labor of lambing and the loss of their frightened babies when they are being cramped into the transportation trucks.
Every year the ewes are impregnated all over again.
Every year sheeps are violently sheared.
Every year, lambs experience harsh weather, brutal mutilations, separation from their mothers, and slaughter.

All of which is done for fashionable reasons.
If humans are not willing to give up a specific material out of many, to spare the sheeps all of these atrocities…What are the chances they would give up the rest of the "natural" symbiosis?