Landmark corporate shift follows yearslong animal welfare campaign; advocates now push for federal ban on kangaroo imports
WASHINGTON, D.C – The Center for a Humane Economy and Animal Wellness Action today announced a landmark achievement in animal welfare advocacy: as of Jan. 1, 2026, Adidas, New Balance, and ASICS have officially ceased using kangaroo leather in shoes. They join Nike, Puma, Sokito, and Diadora, which have already ended production using kangaroo skin. With Umbro committed to ending use in 2026 and Mizuno committed to phasing out all kangaroo leather from its models, nine major athletic footwear companies in total have ended or pledged to end the practice—a corporate animal welfare victory unprecedented in scale and impact, accomplished through the Center’s Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign.
“In a five-year period, the Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign convinced all of the world’s major athletic shoe companies to stop sourcing kangaroo skins for their soccer shoes, including some of the biggest brand names in all the world,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Center for a Humane Economy. “This is a triumph of moral intention but also of human ingenuity at work to develop alternative products that perform for consumers. We can have it both ways – doing the right thing and delivering for consumers.”
Indeed, Adidas, Sokito, and Puma have all noted they have developed synthetic materials that are superior to kangaroo leather.
Campaign Background
The Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign launched in 2020 to expose the inhumane and unethical commercial kill of kangaroos in Australia with the aim of getting athletic wear shoemakers that used kangaroo leather for soccer cleats to stop using it, as the shoe production was driving the kill. Each year, approximately 2 million kangaroos are killed in Australia’s commercial hunting industry – the largest land-based wildlife slaughter in the world. The kill includes nursing mothers, leaving joeys to die of starvation, predation, exposure, or blunt force trauma.
“The campaign employed a multi-faceted strategy combining direct corporate outreach, shareholder engagement, consumer education, and grassroots activism,” said Jennifer Skiff, director of the Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign at the Center. Activists staged protests in the United States, Germany, Australia, Canada, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, and New Zealand, and played a key role in the campaign. “We also engaged with corporate shareholders and directors, appealing to them to stop their participation in an inhumane, unethical commercial kill that, in many cases, conflicted with their own corporate policies,” said Skiff.
“The Kangaroos Are Not Shoes campaign is the most impactful wildlife campaign I’ve seen in my twenty years as an activist,” said animal rights campaigner Donny Moss. “What began as a bold moral stance, that wildlife should never be commodified for fashion, has grown into a global movement that permanently changed an industry.”
“Each company chose to stop using kangaroo skin based on the facts we provided,” Skiff said. “Working together as a global team, we created an epochal shift by exposing the truth behind the kill. These wins send a clear message to other companies: cruelty has no place in commerce.”
Looking Ahead
With these corporate victories secured, the Center for a Humane Economy and Animal Wellness Action are now turning their attention to the larger set of kangaroo products in trade, including skins for uses other than athletic shoes and meat for pet food. The organizations are pushing forward with the Kangaroo Protection Act in the U.S. Congress, which would ban the import of kangaroo body parts or products made from kangaroo into the United States. Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Penn., and Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., introduced the Kangaroo Protection Act H.R. 1992 in March 2025. U.S. Senators Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Cory Booker introduced a companion bill in the Senate in June 2025.
The Center for a Humane Economy and Animal Wellness Action are calling to the public to contact their members of Congress and urge them to co-sponsor the Kangaroo Protection Act to prohibit the importation of kangaroo parts and products into the United States.