Dear John,
The dominos are falling. In the best way.
Nike today announced it will no longer use kangaroo leather in its soccer cleat offerings.
That decision comes right on the heels of a similar announcement from Puma. And that came after a decision in 2021 from the Italy-based Diadora that it would halt any use of kangaroo skins.
This is the biggest moment in our “Kangaroos Are Not Shoes” campaign, and one of the biggest moments in the life of the Center for a Humane Economy, rivaling our work to pass the FDA Modernization Act 2.0 to reduce animal testing and to enact a National Ban on Animal Fighting to shut down illegal cockfighting and dogfighting on every inch of U.S. soil.
I told you just last week that a similar announcement from Puma was especially significant because it was Puma that started the corporate shift toward kangaroo skins in the late 1960s, achieving a marketing milestone when the soccer legend Pelé laced up Puma Kings in a key World Cup game.
Now Nike, one of the best-known brands in the world, is shedding kangaroo skins. The company said it “will stop making any product with kangaroo leather in 2023.”
Remember, commercial shooters massacre two million kangaroos a year in the wild in Australia. They principally do it for the skins, so that they can be used in soccer cleats.
Now, when we convince Adidas to get on board, the commercial demand for kangaroo skins – the massacre that is bound up with that demand – should spare countless adult kangaroos and joeys every year.
We are closer than ever to stopping the global trade in kangaroo parts for footwear for the world’s most popular sport.
We’ve worked to shut down Nike’s sales of kangaroo skins in California, and we’ve asked Nike to end its sale of kangaroo-based shoes everywhere else in the world.
We sent a letter to Nike CEO John Donahoe with more than 62,000 names of supporters from around the world who condemn Nike’s continued funding of kangaroo slaughter. We also placed a series of billboards around Nike’s headquarters to remind the company that this issue won’t go away until the company stops sourcing wild animal parts for its shoes. We even made a short movie about the topic.
With you at our side, we can take on the biggest companies in the world and prevail and protect animals.
Kangaroos do not exist to be turned into shoes.
Savor this gain. It is an enormous win for animals.
We are one giant step closer to our goal to have the entire athletic shoe sector shed kangaroo skins and to eliminate commercial incentives to slaughter these iconic creatures.
For the kangaroos,
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Wayne Pacelle
President
Center for a Humane Economy
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