Leather ban ‘will end up hurting the roos’

There is no sound, scientific or ecological reason why the sustainable harvest of kangaroos should not continue, experts say.

’The ­decisions not to sell or promote sustainably harvested kangaroo products are not based on scientific facts or understanding,’ says former UNSW dean of science Mike Archer. Picture: Getty Images

Animal rights activists have engaged in an irrational and deceitful campaign to ban kangaroo leather which will do more harm than good for kangaroo welfare, leading Australian scientists say.

As activists celebrated the ­decision of sports shoe manufacturers Nike and Puma to phase out kangaroo leather in popular products, scientists condemned the “simplistic anti-kill” sentiments fuelling the campaigns.

Former UNSW dean of science Mike Archer said: “The ­decisions not to sell or promote sustainably harvested kangaroo products are not based on scientific facts or understanding; they’re based on emotive, sub­jective and often incorrect presumptions.”

Professor Archer was highly critical of an Australian-made film, Kangaroo – A Love/Hate Story, which features scenes of animal cruelty and has proved to be one of the most effective tools of the anti-kangaroo product campaign in the US and Europe.

“The makers of this movie were driven to do this because of emotive, often irrational and sometimes deceitful motives,” Professor Archer said.

“For the same reasons, my scientific colleagues and I have had to publish challenges to some of the animal groups’ written claims which are similarly filled with misleading and often dishonest claims.

“After nearly four decades of demonstration that the four ­species of large kangaroos, with populations often well over 40 million, can be sustainably harvested with no net negative ­effects on their populations … there is no sound, scientific reason why sustainable harvest should not continue.”

Ecologists say the move by the sporting brands will “do more harm than good” for kangaroo welfare and mean more kangaroos are killed inhumanely outside of the regulated commercial industry.

“Puma and Nike need to know that if they make a decision not to use kangaroo leather, it’s not going to change the number of kangaroos that should be harvested or need to be ­harvested, they’re just going to rot in the ground rather be used for other purposes,” University of Adelaide ecologist John Read said.

There was a misconception that if people did not buy kangaroo products, the industry would cease, and the killing of kangaroos would end, he said.

“To keep numbers down, more would be culled as pests, and then that’s not respecting the kangaroo at all, and it’s a ­really perverse outcome.”

Dr Read said advocates were pushing a “very simplistic anti-kill story”, adding: “It’s a fantastic ideology but it doesn’t hold up in the real world.

“I would ask (advocates), what will happen in a few years’ time when there’s a drought. What do you do with four million kangaroos starving, how do you feel now?”

ANU honorary professor ­George Wilson said advocates celebrating the downturn of the industry were misguided.

“I understand what they’re trying to do … yet if the industry ends, animal welfare will go backwards – it is already going backwards.”