The Australian Government Masters Misdirection and Double-Speak in Defending the World’s Largest Slaughter of Native Wildlife

This week, U.S. Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Penn., and Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill. — two major champions of animal welfare in Congress — introduced the Kangaroo Protection Act, H.R. 1992, to end the sickening domestic trade and import of kangaroo parts to the United States, mainly for use in the “uppers” in soccer cleats.

These commercial shooters slay more than an estimated 1 million adult kangaroos in their native Australian habitats, killing about 300,000 lactating females and leaving at least 300,000 of their joeys to face the world orphaned, afraid, and not equipped to survive.

The joey killings claim as many victims as the infamous springtime commercial seal slaughter in Atlantic Canada did at its zenith some decades ago. When you add in the adult kill — which is several times larger in scale than the newborn killings — Australia’s assault on kangaroos stands alone as the largest mass slaughter of wildlife in the world.

With the introduction of H.R. 1992 in Congress, emissaries from the government of Australia — which collaborates with commercial shooters to promote this slaughter of iconic native wildlife — will be cutting a path on Capitol Hill and pleading their case to U.S. lawmakers that the commercial shoot is needed to control the kangaroo population.

Let me give you three reasons why the government is dead wrong in making that case.

1. The commercial kill in Australia is driven by foreign demand for kangaroo skins, and not by Australian imperatives about “managing” kangaroos. If foreign nations, including the world’s biggest economic market, stop buying kangaroo parts, then commercial killers won’t kill them in such astonishing numbers.

Do American consumers have a moral obligation to buy Australian products in the United States even if the products are derived from inhumane, night-time shoots that orphan joeys and cause them to starve to death? I think not, and the Australian government needs to understand that generating U.S. commerce is not a foreign government entitlement but a matter of American consumer choice. If you don’t have the good sense to behave properly toward wildlife, keep the products of your massacre at home and don’t bring them to our shores.

2. The Australian government has not just lost the American public; it’s lost American businesses in this space. The two big U.S. athletic shoe brands are Nike, based in Portland, Ore., and New Balance, based in Boston. Nike has eliminated kangaroo skins in its supply chain, and New Balance has done so everywhere but in Japan. Its no-kangaroos-in-shoes policy is supposed to go into full effect in Japan at the end of this year.

American companies are saying they no longer want kangaroo parts in their supply chains. The Australian government is falsely claiming that the commercial kill is motivated by wildlife management concerns, when it’s profit that’s driving the animal killing.

3. Kangaroos are native to Australia, uniquely adapted to the landscapes of Australia. They’ve survived for 15 million years, whereas humans have occupied the Australian continent for only about 50,000 years. In all that time, kangaroos in the wild never required the kind of population “management” meted out by government and industry today.

Can anyone at Adidas or within the Australian government logically suggest that the outcome could be worse for the animals if these shooting sprees, conducted almost exclusively to feed foreign markets, were halted?

Kangaroos Are Not Shoes Campaign

Thanks to our Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign — launched in 2020 — the world now knows the gory details of commercial kangaroo slaying.

Their Turn, the Animal Justice Party of Australia, SPCA International, Animals Australia, and dozens of other groups are now cogs in our global campaign. They are protesting at Adidas outlets across the world.

A few months ago, after a protest at its annual shareholder meeting, Adidas’s CEO signaled that the company may finally do the right thing and stop buying kangaroo skins.

But we’ve heard hollow promises from his predecessors many times before. So far, nothing substantive has come since the CEO’s deflection at the shareholder meeting. It was shareholder appeasement, and not a plan of action to cleanse Adidas’s supply chain of cruelty to wildlife.

In the past, Adidas has defended its commerce by claiming that Australia has assured the company that the “management” of kangaroos is humane. But I cannot think of a more hollow rationale for the company’s commercial participation in the killing sprees. The Australian government mandates that any orphaned joeys found after the dust settles from the night-time shoots must be killed by blunt force trauma, such as hitting them in the head with a rock or slamming their skulls against a truck fender. The mere acknowledgement of the need for these “humane killing” guidelines with rocks and fenders tells us that Australia knows about the mass orphaning problem in the field.

There is just no good reason for any use of kangaroo parts any longer. Alternative fabrics already dominate the soccer shoe models of all the major global brands, so there’s no argument on function. Back in 2022, the Center for a Humane Economy determined that the vast majority — 94.6% — of all World Cup goals scored came from players wearing shoes from human-made fabrics.

Whether you are a weekend soccer player or a World Cup star, there’s just no need for kangaroo skins. They don’t outperform shoes made from human-made, sustainable fabrics. And remember, all other categories of athletic shoes — golf, tennis, running, (American) football, cycling — are kangaroo-leather-free.

Please join the protests against Adidas and the growing protests against the Japan-based Mizuno and ASICS and tell them to halt sourcing of kangaroo skins. And please, don’t waste a moment and reach your two U.S. senators and your U.S. representative in support of the Kangaroo Protection Act.

From beginning to end, Australia’s assault on kangaroos is ghastly and cruel. And nobody, no trade association, and no government department boosting the trade can say with a straight face that it is cruelty-free. It’s anything but that. Australia shamelessly markets the fetching presence of the kangaroos in its marketing and promotions, but then in the dark of night, it gives the nod and turns men loose to slay the gentle adults and to bash in the skulls of their babies.