Earlier this month, some good news, on the face of it, was received regarding the commercial exploitation of animals. After quite a few years of pressure Adidas announced that it would no longer use kangaroo’s skin in its football boots.
However, it hardly is a good sign that only in 2025, and only after many years of pressure and campaigning, a sports company finally agreed to stop using the skin of just one species, and unsurprisingly it is a beloved wild animal. This would have been much more encouraging and significant news if it had been cows. But no, it’s kangaroos, a much-loved wild animal, a symbol of an entire country, an animal that humans are not used to seeing exploited, and an animal that, in order to use its skin, is shot in the head in the wild – an image that many people have a hard time with, as opposed to industrial exploitation from birth to death which the vast majority of humans have no problem with, despite that clearly that is much more cruel.
Still, on the surface, even though the signal here for other animals is not exactly positive because it could never happen in the case of regularly exploited animals, we would still think it is a very positive achievement if instead of kangaroo skin Adidas and other sports companies were committing to using non-animal materials for their football boots. But, it’s not like Adidas, or any other company before it that declared that it would not use kangaroo leather, has committed itself to not using the skin of any other animal, quite the opposite. The meaning of this decision is in practice to use more animals that are already in the cycle of systematical exploitation.
That is so because although the kangaroo leather industry refutes the common claim that the leather industry is simply a by-product of the meat industry, even without slaughtering specific species specifically for the purpose of using their skin, the claim that the leather industry is merely a by-product of the meat industry is a myth. Leather is primarily produced from cows, raised for both flesh and Milk, and from other exploited “farm animals” such as Pigs, Sheeps, Horses, Lambs and Goats. Their skin represents around 50% of the animal’s total value for humans, which makes it the most valuable part of the exploited animals. Leather is not the by product, it is the prime product. Buying leather is supporting the meat industry and vice versa. The profits made from skin selling, decrease the flesh prices and as a consequence enable more people to consume more animal flesh. The meat industry can’t be separated from the leather industry. There are no two industries, they are both products of the same industry, only different body parts.
Therefore, since the claim that leather is simply a by-product of the meat industry is a myth, what may actually happen is that the decision to save the kangaroo from slaughter will strengthen the flesh industry.
Furthermore, considering that this is a campaign not against using animals’ skin but against the use of the skin of kangaroos, it also resonates, unintentionally of course, the view that there are animals whose skin can be used and those whose skin cannot.
Another terrible result may be that more leather would be produced from the skin of cows in India.
Many international retailers routinely use skins from cows slaughtered in India.
The slaughter of cows is legal only in a few Indian states, which means that cows marked out for slaughter must travel by foot, in a death march, for hundreds of miles to the few states where slaughter is legal. Since it is illegal to kill healthy, young cows, they are often deliberately maimed. Their legs are being broken or they may be poisoned so that they would be declared fit for slaughter, not that many slaughterhouse workers care.
In these death marches, cows and buffaloes trudge hundreds of miles without food or water and with little rest. They are beaten mercilessly to be driven forward in the searing Indian heat. Their tails are being broken and tobacco and chili peppers are rubbed into their eyes in order to drive them on or force them to stand up when they collapse. Their hooves are often bleeding and worn down to the feet.
When transported by trucks, the cows suffer terrible overcrowding. Crammed on top of each other in the trucks, they trample on one another, suffocating, gouging and blinding each other with their horns. The trucks careen down twisty, bumpy dirt and gravel roads and mountain passes, pitching the cows around, causing even more injuries. When they are unloaded, the cows who can still stand are pulled or forced to jump from the high truck beds, often breaking legs or pelvis. Those who have collapsed are dragged from the trucks and left lying while other cows are unloaded on top of them.
A common source of leather in India is dairies. Since male calves are of no use to dairy owners, some are sold for meat, while others are intentionally starved so that their skin can be sold to ahinsk manufacturers.
Additional options to fill the gap left by not using kangaroos’ skins anymore, are snakes, lizards, alligators and crocodiles.
Snakes and lizards are not slaughtered but are skinned alive while nailed, fully conscious, to a tree. They suffer for hours and even days before they die. That’s because the skin of a snake that was stripped off, after he is dead, is not ‘pliable’ enough for fashion use.
Most of the alligator skins which are used to make high-priced bags and shoes, come from factory-farmed alligators. Ranched alligators are kept on concrete slabs in half-sunken tin-sided sheds. Up to 600 of them imprisoned in one building, which reek of rotten flesh, alligators waste, and stagnant water.
While the majority of alligator skin comes from factory-farm alligators, nearly all crocodiles are caught in the wild. Crocodiles are often caught with huge hooks and wires and reeled in, until they become weakened from blood loss or drown.
Poachers sometimes kill another animal to use as bait to capture the crocodiles.
Humans may one day stop using the skin of kangaroos, but it is hardly likely that they would stop using all animals’ skins. There is a reason why humans see leather as cool and sexy. You can fight it and explain to people that it is wrong, that animals are suffering for it. You can tell them that they can buy synthetic materials instead. But leather is a lot more than a material that jackets and shoes are made of. Leather is a status. It is a symbol of power and dominance. Trying to convince people to buy synthetic fabrics is missing the point. Synthetic fabric is synthetic power symbol. Humans like to wear other animals’ skin because it is a symbol of power and domination. Violence and control are a part of humans. The problem is intrinsic. There is no “alternative” leather jacket in the world that can change that.
