SHEEP used in research and destined for dinner plates have been saved after the La Trobe University ethics committee heeded student calls to save them.
The 20 sheep had been used at the Bundoora campus in a study of animal nutrition and were to be sold to a stock agent, sparking fears they would be sold for slaughter.
But Allison Drinkwater, president of the university’s Non-human Animal Protection Society, said she had successfully lobbied to save the sheep. She said students raised funds to pay for a sanctuary to take them.
University spokesman Mark Pearce said the organisation’s ethics committee had agreed to sell the animals to a “good home”. He said the experiment had been “innocuous”. The sheep have been taken to Edgar’s Mission, a sanctuary for livestock outside Kilmore, where owner Pam Ahern said they could “see out their days”.
“When the sheep got to the mission, they leapt in the air, jumping for joy at being free,” she said.- Sue Hewitt
