Nike accused of driving kangaroos to extinction

Sydney - Animal rights advocates have urged Nike to use vegan leather alternatives instead of kangaroo skin. More than 40,000 kangaroos are killed in NSW, Australia, every month.

Nike has come under fire for using kangaroo skin to make its leather football shoes. Animal rights advocates in Australia say the world’s largest footwear company is helping to drive the species to extinction.

Protesters have been gathering recently at Nike’s stores in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to urge the company to switch to vegan alternatives.

Nike is the largest buyer of kangaroo leather, according to the Animal Justice Party in New South Wales.

The number of kangaroos killed monthly does not include kangaroos killed by farmers, from recreational hunting, as roadkill, or joeys, whose deaths are not counted.

Notably, even surviving joeys suffer, according to conservation biologist Associate Professor Daniel Ramp.

Protestors have been joined by more than 15 international and national organisations for the Nike-focused animal protection campaign.

Anyone who buys or sells kangaroo leather can’t escape this simple fact: the commercial kangaroo killing industry is industrialised, legalised animal abuse.

It is no different to the bludgeoning of baby harp seals overseas that Australians are often quick to detest. The massacre of kangaroos is a terrible price to pay for a pair of shoes.

MP Mark Pearson named the industry profit-driven, cruel, and environmentally destructive.

They say Nike must take ownership of its contribution to the bludgeoning of thousands of joeys to death every night and the regional extinction of kangaroos already happening across Australia, he says.

It’s been long-accepted that Australia is home to an abundance of kangaroos, which only inhabit a handful of countries. But a recent parliamentary inquiry confirmed the commercial industry is driving kangaroos to extinction.

Persons says there are countless plant-based alternatives to animal skin leather and Nike has the chance to lead the way in developing the world’s best vegan football boots that are better for the planet and all animals.