Animal Rights Activists Protest Adidas Board Member Jackie Joyner-Kersee

“As a member of Adidas’s Board of Directors, Jackie Joyner-Kersee can call on the company’s other leaders, including CEO Bjorn Gulden, to join Nike, Puma and New Balance in making the switch from kangaroo skin to the cruelty-free high-performance materials that are widely available,” said Jennifer Skiff,  Director of International at Center for a Humane Economy.

In Australia, commercial hunters kill an estimated one million adult kangaroos each year. Several hundred thousand of them are mothers with joeys in their pouch or at their foot. Because the joeys cannot survive without their mothers, the shooters either bludgeon them to death, as mandated by the government, or leave them to die of starvation or predation. The nightly kangaroo hunt violates Adidas’s own corporate animal welfare policies.

After Nike, New Balance and Puma learned that kangaroo skin is a product of extreme violence, they transitioned to #crueltyfree materials, yet @adidas continues to claim that shooting wild kangaroos and bludgeoning their joeys to death is humane. #KangaroosAreNotShoes cc:… pic.twitter.com/NWqZLIiS2S

— Animal Rights News (@theirturn) November 21, 2023

Participants of the letter campaign are calling on Joyner-Kersee and her colleagues on the Board of Directors of Adidas to stop using “k-leather” because “chasing down and slaughtering wild kangaroos, including lactating mothers and their joeys, in order to make shoes out of their skin is inhumane and unnecessary.”

The Center for a Humane Economy is calling on Adidas board member Jackie Joyner-Kersee to stop killing kangaroos

Animal rights activists in St. Louis have told TheirTurn that Joyner-Kersee is appearing at two high profile events this month. On October 12th, the St. Louis American, a weekly newspaper serving the African-American community, is giving her a Lifetime Achievement Award at its annual gala. And, on October 25th, the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation is hosting a fundraising gala the Four Seasons Hotel. The activists have not publicly announced plans to protest at these events.

“As one of the most famous Olympic athletes in history, countless people – young and old – see Jackie Joyner-Kersee as a role model,” said Edita Birnkrant, Executive Director of the New York City-based animal advocacy group NYCLASS. “Profiting off of the slaughter of innocent animals and their families sends the wrong message to her supporters and fans. It also betrays the values of her namesake foundation.”

For the past two years, animal rights activists in Australia, Canada, the United States, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany have been staging protests at Adidas stores and corporate officers. During a protest at Adidas’s 2024 shareholder meeting in Germany, CEO Bjorn Gulden, publicly acknowledged that the kangaroo hunt is “terrible” and suggested that the company would soon announce a phase out. Because Adidas has not done so, animal advocacy groups are shifting their attention to the company’s board members.

Thank you to all the wonderful folks who told @adidas today that we will keep calling them out for supporting the brutal slaughter of #kangaroos. Until they ditch #kangarooleather, they will hear from us in #Melbourne, and by others across the globe. #adidaskillskangaroos pic.twitter.com/ACprloDmv6

— Victorian Kangaroo Alliance (@VicKangaroos) April 14, 2024

In addition to targeting Adidas facilities, animal rights activists in New York and Germany have staged protests at the offices of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann because the company’s CEO, Thomas Rabe, is the Chairman of the Board of Adidas. Rabe has not acknowledged the hundreds of letters sent to him by animal protection groups and activists.

Animal protection groups are calling on Thomas Rabe, the Chairman of the Board of Adidas, to stop using kangaroo skin. Rabe is the CEO of the global media giant Bertelsmann