Kangaroo Skin Protests Against Adidas Spread Globally

Animal rights groups around the world are joining a global campaign to compel sportswear giant Adidas to stop fabricating football cleats with kangaroos skin. In 2020, The Center for a Humane Economy (CHE),  a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, and its partner organization, Animal Wellness Action (AWA), launched the #KangaroosAreNotShoes campaign to protect kangaroos from the commercial kangaroo skin trade, the largest slaughter of land-based wildlife on the planet with over a million kangaroos killed annually. With the help of animal rights groups in Australia, North America and Europe, the organizations convinced Nike, Puma and New Balance to replace “k-leather” with cruelty-free materials. In 2023, they turned their attention to Adidas, the largest of the few remaining companies that produce soccer cleats using kangaroo skin.

In 2020, the Center for a Humane Economy and its parter organization, Animal Wellness Action, launched the Kangaroos Are Not Shoes Campaign to curb the slaughter of wild kangaroos in Australia

In Oregon, activists with Animal Rights Collective Portland have staged protests at Adidas’s U.S. headquarters, at an Adidas store and at a Portland Timbers soccer match. The Timbers is sponsored by Adidas. Dani Rukin, an Animal Rights Collective organizer said, “We informed thousands of Timbers fans that Adidas kills kangaroos to make soccer shoes, and the vast majority were not cool with it. We distributed over 600 handouts, and we will return to distribute more if Adidas doesn’t make the switch from kangaroo skin to cruelty-free materials.” Rukin said her organization was inspired to join the campaign after a Zoom meeting with representatives of Australia’s Animal Justice Party (AJP), a political party leading the legislative effort in Australia to ban the commercial kangaroo hunts.

The Animal Rights Collective in Portland stages a protests Adidas at Portland Timbers soccer match. Adidas sponsors the Timbers.

In Germany, activists with Animal Rebellion disrupted Adidas’s Annual General Meeting in Furth, Germany, holding up posters and calling on the company to observe its own animal welfare policies. In response, Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden acknowledged that the commercial kangaroo hunt is “terrible” and hinted that company plans to discontinue the use of k-leather — “And we will certainly, maybe, switch faster than you think.”

In an effort to justify its use of kangaroo skin, however, Gulden stated that it’s is a “byproduct” of the kangaroo killing industry. According to the Center for a Humane Economy, that claim is false. “The only reason the commercial shooting of kangaroos and the orphaning of their joeys occurs is because non-Australian companies like Adidas buy up the skins,” said Wayne Pacelle, the President of the Center for a Humane Economy. “End the purchase of the skins and the commercial kill collapses.”

Other activists in Germany are staging protests at the global headquarters of Adidas and media giant Bertelsmann because the company’s CEO, Thomas Rabe, is the Chairman of the Board of Adidas.

By claiming that kangaroo skin is a by-product of the meat industry when, in fact, it’s the backbone, @Adidas board chairman Thomas Rabe continues to justify the mass slaughter of wild animals and to mislead consumers.@ThomasRabe (who is also the @Bertelsmann_com CEO), knows… pic.twitter.com/ZYjv0iaRbb

— Animal Rights News (@theirturn) March 15, 2024

In New York City, activists with NYCLASS and TheirTurn have staged over a dozen protests inside of Adidas stores and at the U.S. headquarters of Bertelsmann. During the protests, activists have called on Thomas Rabe and Adidas to follow in the footsteps of Nike, Puma and New Balance, which announced in 2023 that they would terminate their use of “k-leather.”

When the commercial hunters hired by @Adidas slaughter wild kangaroos, they often shoot lactating mothers and their joeys. Instead of massacring families in order to steal their skin for football cleats, #Adidas can follow in the footsteps of Nike, Puma and New Balance, which… pic.twitter.com/5IqSBHVxHM

— Animal Rights News (@theirturn) July 1, 2024

During two of the protests in New York City, activists hired a mobile billboard company to display video footage of the commercial kangaroo hunt while driving in circles around the Adidas store.

In Soho (NYC shopping district), hundreds of pedestrians stopped in their tracks to watch a mobile billboard showing video footage of commercial hunters in Australia killing wild kangaroos for Adidas, which makes soccer cleats out of their skin. They appeared to be shocked and… pic.twitter.com/kcPR4QpIS3

— Animal Rights News (@theirturn) May 30, 2024

In Boston, animal rights activists have staged several protests inside and outside of the Adidas store in Assembly Square, a heavily trafficked pedestrian mall. The organizer, veteran animal rights campaigner Laura Ray, was inspired to join the global in early 2024 when she saw the protests taking place in other cities. “Killing wild animals and stealing their skin for clothing and shoes is inhumane and unnecessary,” said Ray. “Adidas has taken the cruelty to a new level, however, by indiscriminately killing lactating mothers and their joeys, who they bludgeon to death.” A video of one of their protests went viral on TikTok and has almost eight million views.

@theirturn

Disrupt! #adidas is still making shoes out of #kangaroos even though Nike, Puma and New Balance switched to #crueltyfree materials. #kangaroosarenotshoes (see link in bio) @Bertelsmann Foundation @adidas

♬ original sound – Donny Moss

Adidas claims that the animals whose skin they use are “free from physical discomfort, pain and injury”