Dear Martin Shankland and Katja Schreiber,

I am writing to ask that you stop using kangaroo leather for your products. Nike and Puma have recently stopped using kangaroo leather for their products and now use modern synthetic materials instead.

Kangaroos and other native animals have an intrinsic value and should have the right to live their natural way of life in their homeland as they have done so for millions of years.

Kangaroos are not farmed but are shot in the wild. Due to their social structure and method of locomotion, kangaroos cannot be farmed and it would not be economical because of their slow rate of reproduction. It would take a fence that is about two metres high to prevent kangaroos from escaping.

Killing kangaroos is cruel. Kangaroos are shot at night in the remote outback where nobody can monitor the shooting. The national Code of Practice for the humane killing of kangaroos is voluntary and there are no penalties for not complying. There is no such thing as 'humane killing'. Adult kangaroos are shot and dragged to trucks, struggling and still conscious. Their throat is slit and they bleed to death. After their mother is shot, baby kangaroos are killed by chopping off their head with an axe or by means of a blow to the head with a heavy blunt instrument. Female kangaroos often have an infant who no longer lives in the pouch but still needs her for milk and protection from predation, as well as to learn life skills. After the mother is shot, this infant will escape and die a slow death due to starvation, exposure, predators or being eaten by ants. Killing kangaroos destroys the social group and causes suffering to the surviving members.

Kangaroo shooters kill the largest and physically superior individuals first since they are paid per kilogram. Over time, this weakens the population structure so much that a smaller, genetically weaker species remains, which reduces its survival ability and strength.

Killing kangaroos for skin and meat is unsustainable. Permits are issued based on aerial surveys of numbers of kangaroos. Only a third of the area in which the shooting is to be carried out is counted each year on a rotational basis. Kangaroos are mobile animals, but the count may be spread over three years. This means that an animal can be counted twice; hence it is possible to overestimate the population and therefore any quotas for killing purposes. Quotas are rarely met because the numbers are simply not there. In 25 years, the average kangaroo size has dropped from 40 kg to 12 kg. The kangaroos being killed are either not adults or the gene pool has been seriously depleted if these are current adult sizes.

The selling of kangaroo skins and meat causes a big increase in the number of kangaroos killed and it is not true that farmers would have killed them anyway in order to protect crops. An example of that is the introduction of a kangaroo meat pet food industry in the state of Victoria, which caused a 250% increase in the number of kangaroos killed in Victoria. An investigation into the industry in 2019 revealed fraud, corruption, illegal activity, overshooting, and a totally unregulated industry.

Kangaroo skin is not just a by-product of kangaroo meat because the trade in kangaroo skins is even more profitable than the trade in kangaroo meat and that makes the whole kangaroo killing industry possible. Adidas is a major buyer of kangaroo leather.

Australia has the worst record in the world when it comes to land animal species extinctions. The number of kangaroo species already extinct is 6, with 17 more species listed as endangered or vulnerable. The kangaroo slaughter is the largest massacre of wild land animals in the world, similar to the massacre of American bison at the end of the 19th century.

Indigenous Australian Elders oppose the commercial killing of kangaroos and other native animals. Many Indigenous Australians have the Kangaroo as their Totem and are forbidden from harming or killing kangaroos. The fact that some Indigenous Australians hunted kangaroos in the past is no excuse today because the present human population of Australia is about 100 times what it was before the white colonization.

Modern high-tech synthetic, plant-based and recycled materials are superior, ecologically acceptable and ethical alternatives to kangaroo leather and are preferred by most football players.

Offering products that are made from kangaroo leather may attract a small number of customers, but it will turn away many others who are concerned about native animals.

Please put an end to your involvement in the killing of the native animals of Australia and stop using kangaroo leather.

Yours sincerely,

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