Puma Ends Purchasing of Kangaroo Skins for Soccer Cleats
Puma has announced it is shedding kangaroo skins for use in its soccer cleats. As the third largest athletic wear company in the world, its declaration gives an enormous shot in the arm to our
Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign and will have the immediate effect of further isolating New Balance and Adidas for their sourcing of wild-killed kangaroos for some shoe models.
“K-BETTER has proven to outperform the previous KING K-Leather in testing for touch, comfort, and durability,” Puma explained in making its cruelty-free pledge. Puma “is so convinced by the performance characteristics of K-BETTER that it will stop producing football boots [soccer cleats] with kangaroo leather altogether this year.”
Animal Wellness Action and its sister organization, the
Center for a Humane Economy, are promoting legislative bans on the sale of kangaroo skins in five states —
Arizona,
Connecticut,
New Jersey,
Oregon, and
Vermont. Lawmakers in other states are readying bills, along with measures to come in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. In California, we continue to investigate illegal sales of kangaroo-based shoes and to initiate court actions under the Unfair Business Practices Act to see that the state law banning trade in kangaroo parts is observed.
UPDATE: Nike has now agreed to follow Puma and eliminate kangaroo skins in its supply chain. We’ll report on that in detail in the March report.
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FDA Modernization Act 2.0 Stirs Global Interest in Testing Alternatives
The global pharmaceutical industry now has the opportunity to wean itself away from massive animal testing programs, say regulators, scientists, and other stakeholders. This comes following the enactment at the end of 2022 of the FDA Modernization Act 2.0.
That bill reversed an 84-year federal animal-testing mandate for experimental drugs, and the passage of the law is widely viewed as a momentous gain in the effort to replace animal testing with 21st-century strategies. More than 60 articles on the progress have been published in authoritative magazines and journals in the United Sates, including
Science Magazine,
Science Direct,
American Association for Cancer Research Journals, and also in
Korea,
Israel, and
Australia, looking at what the changes may mean for the world of drug development.
“I strongly believe that if the U.S. can do it, we can do it, too — and make a success of it.”
said a Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom.
The impact of the new legislation is reverberating globally.
The
Global MPS Day will feature Moderna co-founder Dr. Robert Langer and Emulate organ-on-a-chip customers from Genentech, Incyte, Champions Oncology, the Ellison Institute, and QMUL. They will discuss “The FDA Modernization Act 20.0 is Signed into Law. Now What?” Another industry and NASDAQ-sponsored webinar, entitled “
FDA Modernization Act 2.0 — What Does It Mean for Drug Developers?” is scheduled for this month.
In related news, Charles River Laboratories (CRL), a supplier of non-human primates for research and testing,
received a subpoena regarding its imports of endangered wild-captured monkeys smuggled from Cambodia. The company’s stock dropped 10 percent overnight. CRL had a
call with shareholders on their earnings, with shareholders questioning the CEO about the impact of the FDA Modernization Act on the bottom line.
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Landmark North American Investigation into Horse Slaughter Published
Animal Wellness Action, the Center for a Humane Economy and
Animals’ Angels kicked off a renewed legislative initiative to halt the slaughter of American horses throughout North America as a possible amendment to the 2023 Farm bill. The work comes as the groups released a
detailed investigation revealing that the extraterritorial slaughter of American horses is rapidly waning, but it’s still a merciless journey for its remaining 20,000 victims a year.
The report shows that horses used in racing and show rings or who work for police, on farms, and even as companions are opportunistically
obtained by “kill buyers,” kept in bare-minimum survival conditions at holding facilities, and then transported into Canada and Mexico for slaughter. At its worst, in 1990, about 350,000 were sent to the kill chutes.
Investigators reported on Presidio Export Pens on the border with Mexico; Bar S Feedlot in Montana near the border with Canada; New Holland Auction in southeast Pennsylvania; Knoxville Auction in Tennessee; Fabrizius Livestock in Eaton, Colorado; and Murphy’s Horse Auction in Mira Loma, California. The horses’ journey concludes at horse slaughter plants in Mexico or at one of the last two remaining plants in Canada — Bouvry Exports Ltd. in Alberta and Viande Richelieu in Massueville, Quebec.
“To suggest that the horse slaughter industry is, in any way, providing an important safety valve in controlling captive horse populations is akin to claiming that random acts of violence by street gangs are contributing to human population control,” said Center president Wayne Pacelle. “The killing, at present levels, has a negligible continent-wide effect on population size, and its practices are as coarse and cold-blooded as they come.”
Our
blog argues for an end to the slaughter of American horses throughout North America and highlights the elements of our national investigation. Our full investigative
report is here.
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End Cockfighting Campaign Steps Into High Gear
Our furious assault on animal fighting has focused on the top cockfighting states in the nation, with our release of investigations in
Alabama here and
here,
Kentucky here and
here,
Oklahoma here and
here,
Tennessee here and
here, and
Mississippi here.
We’ve partnered with Showing Animals Respect and Kindness (SHARK) on a number of these campaigns, and that organization is supplementing our investigations with its own strong investigations in the field, including identifying 16 illegal fighting pits in Kentucky and identifying a fighting derby in progress in Tennessee that produced a raid resulting in the arrest of 98 individuals. Even as we declared Oklahoma “the cockfighting capital of the U.S.,” cockfighters there have
mounted a serious effort to gut penalties for illegal cockfighting. Two of our spokespersons, former Attorney General Drew Edmondson and our Senior Veterinarian Tom Pool, wrote compelling columns for
The Oklahoman and
The Tulsa World. We have exposed a
cockfighters’ political action committee in
print and
broadcast outlets.
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Legislative Initiative Launched to Crack Down on Big Ag Slush Fund
We worked with lawmakers from both parties in both chambers to introduce the Opportunities for Fairness in Farming (OFF) Act,
H.R. 1249 /
S. 557.
The measure is designed to reform and bring accountability and transparency to reform the USDA’s Commodity Checkoff Programs that have long been plagued by
scandal after
scandal for misappropriation of funds, lack of transparency, and misusing farmer and rancher tax dollars and was first introduced in the 115th Congress.
Proponents of the OFF Act argue that national livestock trade associations work against the best interests of rank-and-file family farmers and work to benefit industrial agriculture and international processors. These trade associations have long lobbied against animal welfare policies in numerous areas of our work. Animal Wellness Action executive director Marty Irby is quoted
here in Rep. Mace’s press release,
here in Rep. Titus’ release,
here in Sen. Lee’s release, and
here in Sen. Booker’s release.
The act is led by U.S. Reps. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Dina Titus, D-Nev., in the House and U.S. Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, Cory Booker, D-N.J., Rand Paul, R-Ky., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., in the Senate.
