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”

As part of a global “Kangaroos Are Not Shoes” Campaign, animal rights activists in New York City disrupted a launch party hosted by Major League Soccer (MLS) at the Adidas flagship store. During the protest, the activists called on the Chairman of the Board of Adidas, Thomas Rabe, to join Nike, Puma and New Balance in making the switch from “k-leather” to cruelty-free materials.

The Center for a Humane Economy, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, launched the #KangaroosAreNotShoes campaign in 2021 in an effort to protect kangaroos from the egregious abuses associated with commercial kangaroo skin trade and to curb the largest slaughter of land-based wildlife on the planet. In 2023, the Center and its partner organization, Animal Wellness Action, turned their attention to Adidas, the largest of the few remaining companies that produce soccer cleats using kangaroo skin.

In 2021, the Center for a Humane Economy launched the Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign to compel sportswear companies to stop using kangaroo skin in their soccer cleats

In a “Standards on Animal-derived Materials” statement on its website, Adidas claims to source skin from animals who are “free from fear, distress, pain and injury,” and Adidas executives, including the company’s sustainability chief Frank Henke, use that statement to defend the company’s continued support of the commercial kangaroo hunt.

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

Representatives from Australia’s Animal Justice Party, which closely monitors the kangaroo hunt, dispute these “false” claims. In a letter to the board chairman Thomas Rabe, Louise Ward, the New South Wales State Director, wrote:

Excerpt from a letter from the Animal Justice Party to Thomas Rabe, the Chairman of the Board of Adidas

In addition to serving as the Chairman of the Board of Adidas, Thomas Rabe is the CEO of Bertelsmann, a global media empire that owns the publisher Penguin Random House; the music producer BMG; and the RTL Group, an entertainment company with dozens of media outlets. Rabe has not responded to letters in which the Center for a Humane Economy and the Animal Justice Party ask him for a meeting to discuss the use of kangaroo skin and Adidas’s claims made about how it’s sourced.

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

The commercial kangaroo skin trade orphans an estimated 300,000 joeys each year. Government code mandates that hunters bludgeon or decapitate the joeys, who cannot survive without their mothers. Those who do escape die of predation, exposure or hunger.

Chasing down and slaughtering wild kangaroos (and their babies) to steal their skin for #adidasfootball cleats is inhumane, yet @adidas Supervisory Board Chair, #bertelsmann CEO @ThomasRabe, refuses to join Nike, Puma and New Balance in switching to #crueltyfree materials. pic.twitter.com/oPdCxDZyBU

— Animal Rights News (@theirturn) January 25, 2024

Activist groups in Australia, Europe, Canada and the United States have been protesting Adidas for the past year. Several have decided to escalate the campaign by protest Thomas Rabe at Bertelsmann offices in the U.S. and Germany.

Emma Hurst, a member of Parliament in Australia, addresses activists participating in a #KangaroosAreNotShoes protest at Adidas in Sydney

In February, 2024, TheirTurn launched a campaign calling on Thomas Rabe to make the switch from kangaroo skin to cruelty-free materials. To date, 173 people have sent a total of 2,453 emails to Rabe and his colleagues at Adidas and Bertelsmann.

Petition calling on Thomas Rabe, the Chairman of the Board of Adidas, to replace kangaroo skin with cruelty-free materials

The NYPD arrested the husband of Jennifer Sagum, a Vice President at Marc Jacobs, after he stole an iPhone from an animal rights activist during an anti-fur protest in front of the couple’s Brooklyn brownstone. Brian Moss, a partner at Coventry Real Estate Advisors, was charged with grand larceny, a felony.

Brian Moss, the husband of Marc Jacobs VP Jennifer Sagum, was arrested and charged with grand larceny after stealing the phone of an anti-fur activist during a protest at the couple’s Brooklyn home.

In an effort to resolve the conflict without making an arrest, the NYPD officer handling the theft made an appeal to the activist whose phone Moss stole. “He’s a professional. Honestly, he’s deathly afraid of being arrested and it affecting his career.” Moss works in financial services, an industry that is required under federal law to ban individuals convicted of felonies.

In response, the victim agreed to not press charges if Moss returned the phone. By then, however, it was too late. According to witnesses, Moss’s wife, Jennifer Sagum, had thrown the iPhone into a nearby sewer drain and could not retrieve it. After initially telling the police officer that he returned the iPhone to the activists, Moss acknowledged that he no longer had the phone in his possession.

During an anti-fur protest at the Brooklyn home of Marc Jacobs VP Jennifer Sagum and her husband Brian Moss, Sagum tossed the iPhone of a protester in a sewer drain after Moss grabbed it.

The theft of the phone and Moss’s subsequent arrest were not, according to the activists, the most dramatic moments of the two hour protest.  Before he was arrested, Moss dragged his young, visibly terrified daughter out of their house and down the front steps. According to the activists, he appeared to be using the presence of a child to demand that the activists terminate the protest.

Brian Moss dragged his daughter down the stairs while confronting anti-fur protesters at his Brooklyn home.

The protest was organized by animal rights activists in NYC in support of a national anti-fur campaign led by the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT), an organization whose campaigns have contributed to fur-free policies at several luxury fashion companies.

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by CAFT (@caftusa)

Marc Jacobs is one of the few fashion designers that continues to use real animal fur. For years, advocacy groups have pled with him to switch to cruelty-free materials, as most other designers have done in recent years.

Fashion designer Marc Jacobs has refused to commit to a fur-free policy

In 2022, Jacobs told animal rights activists that he was no longer using fur, but, during a 2023 runway show staged in collaboration with Fendi, he featured a fox fur hat.

After telling animal rights activists that he was no longer designing with fur, Marc Jacobs showed a fox fur hat during a runway show

“On fur farms, wild animals suffer from the moment they are born until the moment they die,” said Tyler Bauer, an organizer with CAFT USA. “The animals spend their entire lives trapped in tiny wire cages, crammed by the thousands into squalid sheds, unable to take more than a few steps in any direction. This abuse of  fur-bearing animals must end.”

Foxes, raccoon dogs, rabbits, chinchillas and other animals killed for their fur go insane from the lifelong intensive confinement in cages.

CAFT organizers say the nighttime protest at the home of Ms. Sagum represents an escalation of their efforts because the more measured tactics employed in the past have been unsuccessful in compelling Mr. Jacobs to implement a fur-free policy.

Petition calling on Marc Jacobs to adopt a fur-free policy

On December 2nd and 3rd, hundreds of animal rights activists in 20 cities staged protests at Adidas stores in support of a global effort to compel the sportswear company to stop using kangaroo skin in its soccer cleats. Australia’s Animal Justice Party, which is advocating for a ban on kangaroo slaughter in the Parliament, organized the global day of action in support of the Center for a Humane Economy’s “Kangaroos are Not Shoes” campaign. Advocacy groups staged protests in Australia, Canada, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, New Zealand and the United States.

“Adidas states that it opposes the inhumane slaughter of kangaroos, but bludgeoning and orphaning a half-a-million joeys every year is the antithesis of humane,” said Jennifer Skiff, campaign director at the Center for a Humane Economy. “The global protest was a call on Adidas to uphold its pledge to operate humanely.“

Adidas claims that the leather used in its soccer cleats is sourced from kangaroos who are slaughtered humanely. The Center for a Humane Economy has provided the company with evidence demonstrating otherwise.

During the protests, participants read an Animal Justice Party manifesto decrying Adidas’s support of the kangaroo hunt: “Adidas, you have the power to change, to be on the right side of history. We are watching. The world is watching. We will hold you to account, and we will keep coming back until you stop killing kangaroos.”

@centerforahumaneeconomy

@adidas we are watching. The world is watching. kangaroosarenotshoes

♬ original sound – centerforahumaneeconomy – centerforahumaneeconomy

According to the Center for a Humane Economy, the nightly kangaroo hunt represents the largest slaughter of land-based wildlife in the world. Because Adidas is the only large shoe manufacturer still using kangaroo leather, the company is the primary target of animal rights groups.

During a protest at the Adidas store in Sydney, Australia, the Animal Justice Party called on the company to stop killing kangaroos to make soccer cleats

“Animals inhabit this planet with us, not for us,” said Edita Birnkrant, the Executive Director of NYCLASS, an organizer of the NYC protest. “When we learned that Adidas was paying hunters to slaughter kangaroos and steal their skin, advocates in New York wanted to join the global fight to protect them.”

Inspired by protests in Australia and the U.S., #AnimalRights activists in Germany have joined the global campaign to compel sportswear giant @adidas (which is based in Germany) to stop making football cleats out of kangaroo skin: https://t.co/0goS5N1NGS #KangaroosAreNotShoes pic.twitter.com/3YysTs1Euc

— Animal Rights News (@theirturn) October 26, 2023

“Our request is simple, and it’s fair,” said Donny Moss of TheirTurn.net, an organizer of the NYC protest. “We’re asking that Adidas join Nike, Puma, Diadora and New Balance in switching from kangaroo skin to cruelty-free materials, which are readily available to the company. With one call to his product development team, Adidas’s CEO Bjørn Gulden could put the wheels in motion to make this ethical upgrade.”

During protests in Europe, Australia and the United States, animal rights activists called on Adidas to stop making soccer cleats out of kangaroo skin

In July, 2023, Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick re-introduced the Kangaroo Protection Act. If passed, the law would ban the importation and sale of kangaroo products in the United States. The state of California banned the import and sale of products made from kangaroos in 1971. In 2023, NY State Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal introduced similar legislation.

@theirturn

See how #adidas customers, employees and the NYPD react to #kangaroosarenotshoes protest.

♬ original sound – Donny Moss

The Center for a Humane Economy and Animal Justice Party assert that the #KangaroosAreNotShoes campaign, which is growing in size, scope and strength, will ultimately compel Adidas to replace “k-leather” with a cruelty-free alternative.