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Angered by Nike’s refusal to stop slaughtering wild kangaroos for their skin, dozens of animal rights activists disrupted business at the company’s store in New York City’s Flatiron District. During the protest, which took place on June 5th, the activists educated pedestrians about kangaroo slaughter and encouraged Nike customers to purchase cruelty-free alternatives to skin. The protest was organized by the animal rights groups NYCLASS, TheirTurn and The Center for A Humane Economy, a Washington-D.C.-based advocacy group leading the #KangaroosAreNotShoes campaign, a global effort to end the use of kangaroo skin for shoe leather.

The massacre of kangaroos in Australia represents the largest slaughter of land-based wildlife in the world. According to the Center for a Humane Economy, 70% of the approximately two million kangaroos killed each year for commercial purposes are used to make soccer shoes for sportswear companies like Nike.

Nike and other sportswear companies hire hunters to slaughter wild kangaroos for their skin, which they use to make soccer shoes.

The Australian National Code of Practice for the Humane Shooting of Kangaroos and Wallabies for Commercial Purposes governs the industry and sanctions this cruelty. An estimated 40% of kangaroos are shot in the neck or body instead of the head, in violation of the federal code, resulting in wounding and non-instantaneous death. Those who escape die slowly from their gunshot wounds. 

Some of the females who are shot have babies (joeys) in their pouches or by their sides. Code dictates that hunters either decapitate or bludgeon to death the joeys who are in the pouches. The joeys who are not in their mother’s pouch often die slowly from exposure and predation. Each year, an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 joeys die during the nightly kangaroo hunt.

According to the Center for a Humane Economy, approximately 70% of the kangaroos who are hunted for commercial purposes are used to make soccer shoes for companies like Nike

The Center for a Humane Economy says that Nike rationalizes the mass slaughter of wild kangaroos by engaging in green washing and humane washing. According to Nike, “Suppliers must source animal skins from processors that use sound animal husbandry and humane animal treatment/slaughtering practices.” Activists say that hunting down wild animals who want to live in peace with their families is inherently inhumane.

Animal rights activists are calling on Nike to use cruelty-free alternatives to kangaroo skin

The Kangaroo Protection Act, federal legislation introduced in 2021, would ban the importation of kangaroo products into the United States. Several retailers, including Nordstrom, Gucci, Prada, and Versace, have already stopped selling kangaroo skin products. The sale of kangaroo parts is banned in California.

Animal rights activists in the U.S. and Australia are campaigning to end the use of kangaroo skin as shoe leather

New York City is one of many U.S. and Australian cities participating in the #KangaroosAreNotShoes campaign.  On June 4th, activists in Los Angeles staged a disruption inside of the Nike store in Santa Monica, and activists in Portland protested in front of a sports stadium.

Animal rights activists in Portland, where Nike is headquartered, and Los Angeles protest the company’s use of kangaroo skin in its soccer shoes

According to an explosive new documentary film, Kangaroo: A Love-Hate Story,  kangaroo meat industry executives, ranchers, landowners and the government officials who support them have conspired to re-brand Australia’s icon as a “pest” and eradicate them in the dark of night for profit.

Meat companies want to kill kangaroos in order to sell their body parts, and ranchers and landowners want them killed in order to keep them off their land. With the help of government officials, the perpetrators disguise the largely unknown slaughter as a necessary cull to curb population growth.

The daily hunt, which takes place during the dark of night, is so brutal that it will leave even the most cynical viewers wondering how this could possibly be happening in modern day times.

Kangaroo: A Love-Hate Story

While the filmmakers, Kate McIntyre Clere and Mick McIntyre, introduce us to many villains who are complicit in the atrocities, they also profile the brave activists who  jeopardize their freedom and safety in order to expose and stop the wholesale massacre of Australia’s most iconic animal.

World Premiere of Kangaroo: A Love-Hate Story in NYC. From left to right: Kate McIntyre Clere; Hon. Mark Pearson, Suzy Welch, Dr. Dror Ben Ami, Mick McIntyre

Documentary films succeed with support from the grassroots. Please encourage your friends to see the Kangaroo: A Love-Hate Story and share the filmmakers’ posts from  their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages using the hashtag #KangarooTheMovie. 

Canberra, the capital of Australia, plans to kill 1,600 wild kangaroos in an effort to reduce overgrazing and minimize dangerous interactions between humans and kangaroos. Lawyers for Animal Liberation ACT, an Australian animal rights group, have persuaded a judge to delay the cull, saying “If the government wants to kill more than 1,600 healthy wild animals, we have to be clear that the science is impeccable before we let them do that.” The activists also point out that their babies will have to be killed, “And remember, those 1,600 deaths don’t take into account the joeys that have to be brutally dispatched by shooters after they’ve killed their mothers.”

Photo credit: Time Magazine

Is a wild animal “cull” ever acceptable? In cases of overpopulation? Starvation? Danger to humans? We don’t cull humans even though we are the most overpopulated species on the planet. Do alternatives to killing, such a birth control and making the environment less hospitable, always exist? As activists, should we formulate our opinions about culls on a case-by-case basis? I don’t know the answers. In this case, Animal Liberation ACT is convinced that the kangaroo cull is cruel and unnecessary, and they need funds to continue to pay for the legal costs to stop it.