Puma To Stop Selling Shoes Made From Kangaroo Leather, Nike and Adidas are indirectly pressured to distance themselves from the largest slaughter of terrestrial wild animals in the world by Puma’s move.
Kangaroos Are Not Shoes
One of the biggest athletic shoe and sportswear brands, Puma, announced this week that it will no longer use kangaroo skins in its soccer cleats. This will put pressure on Nike and Adidas to get rid of the iconic kangaroo skins from their supply chains.
According to Wayne Pacelle, president of the Center for a Humane Economy, the announcement made by PUMA is a significant turning point in the “Kangaroos Are Not Shoes” campaign, which launched in 2020 to promote the end of the use of kangaroo leather in soccer cleats. They think that non-animal-based fabrics are better on a moral and athletic level, and that every company in the industry should follow Puma’s example.
The other companies only make soccer cleats out of kangaroo leather, not for running, golf, tennis, or any other footwear.
Puma
Puma said in a statement on Thursday that it would no longer use K-Leather to make its PUMA KING soccer shoes and would instead use its newly introduced K-BETTER material, which does not come from animals. Puma explained that tests for touch, comfort, and durability have shown that the K-BETTER leather performs better than the previous KING K-Leather. It went on to say that Puma is so convinced by the K-BETTER’s performance that it will stop making football boots (soccer cleats) made of kangaroo leather this year.
Puma’s decision to stop using kangaroo skins and start using synthetics completes a long-standing trend. Although synthetics dominated, 164 of the 172 goals scored at the World Cup the year before came from players who were wearing conventional leather or synthetic shoes.
Center For A Humane Economy
According to senior attorney Kate Schultz of the Center for a Humane Economy, kangaroo skin soccer cleats account for approximately 70% of the demand for commercially slaughtered kangaroos. This lucrative industry, which represents the largest commercial slaughter of land-based wild animals in the world, has long been supported by many soccer cleat manufacturers, including the biggest names like Nike, Adidas, and, up until this point, Puma.
In their natural habitat, approximately two million wild kangaroos are brutally killed each year. When mass shootings take place in the dead of night in the Outback, it is impossible to enforce killing regulations because they are lacking. In addition, commercial shooters are permitted to kill mother kangaroos even when the young are still in their pouch or nursing. The hunter is required to kill the joey according to the commercial code of the industry. This is usually done by slamming the joey against the side of a car or another hard surface. The joey is certain to die from exposure, starvation, dehydration, or predation if he or she runs away from the hunter in fear.
Animal Wellness Action
Since 2020, Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy have been leading the “Kangaroos Are Not Shoes” campaign to ban the use of kangaroo leather in soccer cleats. In June 2020, the groups will release a ground-breaking report; in February 2021, premiered a 60-second film; in March 2021, erected billboards near the Nike headquarters in Oregon; organized protests all over the United States and in Australia, as well as in California; and provided funding for the International Kangaroo Protection Alliance (IKPA) to be established in April 2021.
Additionally, the AWA and the Center have contributed to the development of state and federal laws prohibiting the importation and sale of kangaroo products, most recently in Arizona, Connecticut, New Jersey, Oregon, and Vermont. In addition, numerous lawsuits have been filed in California in the summer of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, claiming that soccer retailers are selling kangaroo leather soccer cleats in violation of state law.
Kangaroo Leather
Although “premium kangaroo leather” shoes that cost more than $200 can still be purchased online on Nike’s website, despite Nike’s promise ten years ago to eliminate its kangaroo-sourced products.
According to senior legal advocate Natasha Dolezal of the Center for a Humane Economy, Nike executives broke that specific promise they made a decade ago. Today, following destructive flames that left billions of Australian creatures dead, the mass killing of kangaroos in their local natural surroundings proceeds in view of the help of major athletic shoe retailers, similar to Nike and Adidas, who can undoubtedly involve their all around existing elective materials for their contributions in general – as Jaguar has quite recently shown.
About The Campaign
Animal Wellness Action is a 501(c)(4) organization based in Washington, D.C., whose goal is to help animals by advocating for laws that prohibit cruelty. We champion causes that reduce the enduring of buddy animals, livestock, and natural life. We advocate for approaches to quit dogfighting and cockfighting and different types of malignant remorselessness and to stand up to production line cultivating and other foundational types of creature abuse. We work to enforce good public policies and advocate for their implementation in order to prevent cruelty. We remind voters which candidates care about our issues and which ones do not in order to enact effective laws. We think that helping animals benefits everyone.
The Center for a Humane Economy is a non-profit organization whose mission is to influence corporate behavior in order to establish a humane economic system. The Center, the first of its kind in the movement to protect animals, encourages businesses to fulfill their social responsibilities in a culture where consumers, investors, and other key stakeholders despise cruelty and environmental degradation and embrace innovation as a means of eliminating both.
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More information on the campaign is available at www.KangaroosAreNotShoes.org and www.centerforahumaneeconomy.org.