Adidas and Kangaroo Leather

I stumbled across this article recently while on Google, but before I clicked on the link all I could see was 'Stella McCartney, militant vegan, joins forces with Adidas...' and I was excited, because I know that Adidas carries some vegan gym and sports shoes, which are pretty hard to find. This could only be a good thing.

Imagine my surprise when I followed the link and saw the rest of the title: '...company that profits from bloody slaughter of kangaroos'.

I had absolutely no idea that Adidas used kangaroo leather, and no idea how kangaroos were 'harvested' for this leather. I'm shocked and pretty sickened.

This article is over a year old, so I checked the Adidas website to see if Stella McCartney was still partnered with Adidas, and sure enough she is. It appears that she is designing a line of clothing and shoes for Adidas, and I am 100% sure that she will use entirely synthetic fabrics within her line, but the questions that the Daily Mail article raised are still valid (as much as I hate to agree with the Daily Mail on anything).

As such a staunch supporter of animal rights, how can she align with a company that supports such a horrific slaughter?

Or, on the other hand, should we be happy that she is bringing at least a measure of compassion to such a company? You have to start somewhere right?

The original point of this post was going to point out that Adidas carries a line of vegan training shoes, and on their website these shoes are clearly marked as 'vegan', which I thought was cool. Delving further into the website, I found many shoes that were also marked as 'K-leather'. After reading the Daily Mail article, I just can't get the images out of my head of baby kangaroos stomped to death or left for dead in the Australian outback.

Anyway, here is a head's up from PETA about where to find cruelty-free shoes in the meantime. And on ths ShoeBuy site, they have their vegan shoes specifically categorized for easy searching. They also ship internationally.

Kangaroo Beat Up in Australia

I was hoping to start this blog on a calmer post, with maybe an introduction or the reasons why I am starting it to begin with, but I have just been sent a news report from a friend in Australia, and need to vent about it.

It seems to be happening more often that a story pops up in the news about animal abuse that is so horrific that you can't help but stop and cry. Apparently a video was uploaded recently to a website showing a kid in Australia beating up a defenseless kangaroo.

For the full story, please see here. There is also a video that shows small clips from the film, but it is really hard to watch, so be warned.

I will never, ever understand how someone could do this. Or how others (this kid's friend) can stand around and video the event. Because the kangaroo is not just running away, but staying to defend itself, they suspect that it may have been injured before this kid started punching it. What really freaks me out is that I have a sinking feeling that these kids first hit it with their car (you can see the headlight lights of the car in the video), and then got out to torture it and film its abuse.

I can't even begin to describe how this makes me feel. The confusion that the poor animal must have felt at this sudden attack. The forethought that must have gone on for these kids to get out of the car, grab a camera, and begin. It really disturbs and upsets me, and that is such an understatement. I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach of anger, despair, rage, and fear. I feel choked up.

In trying to see a silver lining to this whole ordeal, I will say this: That this and other animal abuse stories are being widely published and reported on is a good sign for the animal rights movement. It is sad that hardly a week goes by without another horrific report of animal abuse/torture/neglect surfacing, but perhaps this media coverage shows a growing interest in what is happening to animals all over the world.

I can only hope that by this attention being drawn to these issues, slowly more and more people will come to see how wrong it all is, and with this groundwork laid then maybe some real changes can be made.

To anyone in Australia who may come across this, now or in the future: Please let me know if they catch the kid who did this, and good luck finding the bastard.