Lawmakers of the US state of Oregon have introduced a bill to ban the sale of kangaroo parts. On 19th January 2023, Oregon Sen. Floyd Prozanski introduced Senate Bill 764, which would make it a crime to buy, receive, sell, or commercially exchange “any product containing a part of a dead kangaroo.”
Sen. Prozanski said: “It’s unconscionable that millions of native wild animals in Australia have been killed for the sake of high-end soccer cleats worn by a subset of elite soccer players. I understand this legislation may have financial impact on some Oregon shoe manufacturers, but in the balance Oregon should be standing on the humane side of this issue. There are other materials that can be used in making these high-end cleats.”
The Center for a Humane Economy, Animal Wellness Action, and the Animal Wellness Foundation welcomed the move. Rene Tatro, a board member of the Center for a Humane Economy, said: “It’s time for these shoe manufacturers to evolve their business model to eliminate extreme animal cruelty in their product offerings.”
A federal ban on kangaroo products was proposed in the US House in 2021, but it did not pass. Recently, the European Commission has also rejected a similar ban proposal from Dutch MEPs that would have banned it in all 27 EU countries. But California has had a ban on kangaroo-based products since the 1970s (although there have been complaints of not being properly enforced).
Unfortunately, shooting kangaroos for commercial purposes is legal in Australia. Despite the shooters getting the support of the government that claims there are too many kangaroos, according to a report by NSW ecologist Ray Mjadwesch, since 2001, kangaroo populations have declined by 40%, and all commercially hunted kangaroos have declined so dramatically that they fulfil the criteria as a threatened species.
