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In Campaign to End Kangaroo Slaughter, Animal Rights Groups Target Adidas

Most people don’t believe it when they hear it for the first time, but it’s true — commercial hunters in Australia kill more than one million wild kangaroos each year. The nightly kangaroo hunt is the largest slaughter of land-based mammals on the planet. The kill is fueled by multinational sportswear companies that use kangaroo skin, also known as “k-leather,” to make soccer cleats.

Photo of kangaroo skin protest at Adidas in NYC organized by Donny Moss of TheirTurn.net — Animal rights activists with TheirTurn stage kangaroo skin protest at Adidas store in NYC

Due to efforts of animal advocacy groups and their supporters around the world, the number of kangaroos killed has declined in the past year because fewer companies are fabricating cleats from their skin. In 2023, three of the largest buyers of k-leather—Nike, Puma, and New Balance—pledged to stop using it. Adidas, the German sportswear giant, is the last major holdout.

Kangaroos: Wild Animals Who Are Misunderstood

Kangaroos are mammals who are native and live in the wild only on the continent of Australia. They can grow up to 5 feet tall, weigh up to 200 pounds, and leap a distance of 25 feet. They are the only large animals who move by hopping. They are marsupials, and baby kangaroos, or joeys, spend up to nine months inside their mother’s pouch. Even when they leave, they remain dependent, staying by their mother’s side, “at foot,” until they are old enough to fend for themselves. Kangaroos have inhabited the land for 15 million years— far longer than the 50,000 years that humans have. They are herbivores and live in family units called mobs. For these and other reasons, these unique, peaceful animals are a national icon in Australia and the mascot of Australia’s current tourism campaign.

To justify the commercial slaughter of kangaroos, they are often referred to as pests — mainly by cattle and sheep farmers who see them as competition for grass.

The Australian Wild Game Industry Council (AWGIC) also justifies the slaughter, stating, “The commercial industry prioritizes animal welfare and uses scientifically proven methods to harvest kangaroos humanely in their natural habitat” and that the slaughter “is one of the most sustainable wild harvest operations in the world.”

These defenses, however, are untrue and misleading. According to Jennifer Skiff, director of the Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign for the animal advocacy group Center for a Humane Economy, “The kills are brutally inhumane, with government protocol calling for shooters to pull joeys out of their mother’s pouches and to kill them with blunt force. The young are bludgeoned while the additional “at foot” joeys run when their mothers are shot. Most of those who escape die slowly of starvation.” An estimated 500,000 joeys a year suffer this fate.

And while the kill industry says it’s the “most sustainable” operation in the world, soccer cleat maker Sokito didn’t find that claim to be true. The United Kingdom-based company ended its use of kangaroo leather in shoes in April 2024, citing concerns over kangaroo population management practices and population count discrepancies.

K-leather industry propaganda has served business well. During kangaroo skin protests in the United States, members of the public, including tourists from Australia, often echo industry talking points. Some have even asserted that kangaroos are an “invasive species,” even though kangaroos are native animals.

The Nightly Kangaroo Hunt

Every night in Australia, commercial hunters wielding rifles set out in trucks to chase down and shoot wild kangaroos. To ease the concerns of the public, the industry claims the slaughter is humane because hunters shoot their victims in the head, killing them in an instant. However, an estimated 40% of kangaroos are shot in the neck or body instead, leaving them with painful wounds that kill them slowly over days or weeks.

While the industry claims the kangaroo hunt is highly regulated, advocates assert that nighttime killing takes place in the absence of government officials who could prove compliance. Landowners often report finding beheaded kangaroos and live joeys crying for their mothers.

The Campaign to Protect Kangaroos

Over the past two decades, commercial hunters have slaughtered up to two million kangaroos each year, not including joeys. Appalled by the mass slaughter of kangaroos, the Center for a Humane Economy launched a campaign in 2020 to pressure the largest purchasers of k-leather, companies that make soccer cleats, to switch to cruelty-free materials.

The #KangaroosAreNotShoes campaign, which consists of education, litigation, lobbying, and protest, has seen success. In 2023 and 2024, the organization worked with members of Congress to introduce legislation in the House of Representatives and Senate to ban the sale of kangaroo parts in the United States. If passed, the Kangaroo Protection Act would close off one of the world’s biggest markets for kangaroo skin, dramatically reducing the number of kangaroos slaughtered. It is already against the law to sell kangaroo parts in California.

Through education and diplomacy, the Center convinced Nike, Puma, and New Balance to stop using k-leather in 2023. In 2024, Sokito joined them. Adidas, the last major holdout, has been the target of grassroots Animal rights groups supporting the Center’s campaign on the ground.

Photo of protest at Adidas store in Australia — Animal Justice Party Member Emma Hurst speaks to Animal rights activists staging a kangaroo skin protest at an Adidas store in Australia

Throughout 2023 and 2024, activists have staged dozens of protests inside and in front of Adidas stores in at least 20 cities in North America, Europe, and Australia, where locals are especially protective of their beloved “roos.” In addition to demonstrating at retail stores, activists have protested at Adidas’s U.S. headquarters in Portland, Oregon, and its global headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany. During one protest in New York City, actor James Cromwell entered an Adidas store and made a public statement calling on the company to stop killing kangaroos. Cromwell’s message was amplified by a mobile billboard displaying kangaroo hunt footage while circling the store.

Photo of mobile billboard protesting Adidas over its use of kangaroo skin — Pedestrians in NYC watch a mobile billboard displaying images of the kangaroo hunt, which is driven in part by Adidas’s use of kangaroo skin

In addition to targeting Adidas directly, activists are also protesting members of Adidas’s board of directors, including Thomas Rabe, the chairman. In New York City and Germany, local activists have staged protests at the corporate headquarters of Bertelsmann, a German media conglomerate, where Rabe serves as CEO. In New York City, activists with the grassroots group TheirTurn occupied the Bertelsmann lobby on three occasions during the afternoon rush hour, much to the surprise of employees exiting the building.

Photo of Adidas Board Chairman Thomas Rabe — Animal rights activists are calling on Adidas Board Chairman Thomas Rabe to stop using kangaroo skin

Activists also launched a letter-writing campaign targeting Adidas’s most famous board member, track and field Olympian Jackie Joyner-Kersee. The four-time gold medalist has not responded to any of the thousands of people who wrote to her, nor has she responded to leadership at the Center.

In April 2024, Netherlands-based ASN Bank delisted Adidas from its financial universe. In a public statement, the bank stated, “The use of wildlife for commercial activities is in direct violation of our sustainability criteria.” The company told the Center’s Skiff its decision was also based on the fact the commercial kill is inhumane.

Adidas CEO Acknowledges the Cruelty

In May 2024, activists with Animal Rebellion and shareholders confronted Adidas CEO Björn Gulden during the company’s annual meeting in Fürth, Germany. After calling on him to observe his company’s own animal welfare policies, Gulden indicated he would announce a kangaroo-free policy: “I also find the images of the hunts and what happens there terrible,” he said, “And we will certainly, maybe, switch faster than you think.”

Photo of Adidas CEO Bjorn Gulden at Adidas Annual Meeting where he acknowledged that the kangaroo hunt is "terrible." — Adidas CEO Bjorn Gulden acknowledges that the kangaroo hunt is “terrible.”

Indeed, the Adidas animal welfare policies are clear. In a publicly posted “Standards on Animal-derived Materials” statement that has since been taken down, Adidas claims to source skin from animals who are “free from fear, distress, pain and injury.” In the months before Gulden acknowledged the cruelty associated with the kangaroo hunt, company executives used that statement to defend the company’s continued use of k-leather. Adidas has removed this detailed policy from its website and replaced it with a more general statement: “Adidas aims to source materials of animal origin in a humane, ethical, and sustainable manner concerning animal welfare and species Conservation.”

After publicly acknowledging the cruelty associated with the kangaroo hunt, Gulden continues to justify it by describing k-leather as a “byproduct” of the kangaroo-killing industry. According to Wayne Pacelle of the Center for a Humane Economy, that claim is false. Pacelle says the demand for kangaroo skin by companies in foreign countries, like Adidas, fuels the commercial hunt.

The availability of high-performance alternatives is beginning to render k-leather — and the industry that kills kangaroos — obsolete. According to the Center for a Humane Economy, more than 90% of the soccer players at the 2022 World Cup wore cleats that did not contain kangaroo skin.

On its website, Adidas states that it intends to replace animal-derived materials with “innovative materials of non-animal origin as alternatives are commercially available to meet the product performance our consumers expect.” Omitted from this statement is an acknowledgment that these innovative alternatives already exist and are being used by Adidas and its competitors.

Conclusion

As long as Adidas continues to fund the mass slaughter of kangaroos, animal advocacy groups will protest the company on the streets, online, and in the halls of Congress.

On November 16, Australia’s Animal Justice Party, for a second year, organized an International Day of Protest against Adidas to remind the multinational corporation to join others in doing what is right by removing kangaroos from its offerings.

People can help by sending automated letters to Adidas board members Thomas Rabe and Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

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