Puma ‘will regret decision to go synthetic’ and stop using kangaroo skin in football boots

Industry boss condemns ‘misinformation campaign’ that influenced sports shoe company’s switch from kangaroo leather to a synthetic alternative.

Andrew McDonald at his Strand Arcade workshop in Sydney. Picture: Jane Dempster

Puma will come to regret its ­decision to stop using kangaroo leather in its signature football boots, industry leaders say, after the sports shoe company chose a synthetic alternative.

While animal rights activists celebrated the switch, a leather ­industry boss condemned the “misinformation campaign” that drove the decision.

Lindsay Packer from Packer Leather near Brisbanesaid: “It’s fake news and they don’t want to look at the facts. Some days I get upset. It ­affects employment, it ­affects ­dollars.”

Sydney shoemaker Andrew McDonald disputed Puma’s claims that its new nylon microfibre technology was better, saying kangaroo leather was optimal ­because it is lightweight but strong.

Mr McDonald said Puma’s ­decision to stop using kangaroo leather for its shoes was a “branding exercise” that would one day be regretted.

He said the wider push against kangaroos as a protected species was full of “misinformation”, as the animals need to be culled.

Mr McDonald said there was a wider trend away from leather and towards synthetic materials which are “completely unhealthy for your feet”.

“The great thing about leather is it’s a natural fibre so it has the ability to absorb moisture and then expel the moisture,” he said.

The industry is facing what it claims is a growing misinformation campaign in the US and Europe, aimed at a total ban on kangaroo products, that threatens Australia’s $200m-a-year export trade.

David Beckham in his Adidas boots. The soccer champion ditched the Predator brand two decades ago because the boots were made of kangaroo leather. Picture: Clive Brunskill /Allsport

Puma, which supplies boots to several AFL and NRL players, has announced it is replacing its “K-Leather” football boots with a “K-Better” technology, described as “a completely new, non-animal based upper material”.

The German company – which has been subjected to an intense campaign by animal rights activists – claims it is so convinced by the performance characteristics of its nylon microfibre alternative that it will stop using kangaroo leather altogether.

Co-founder of animal welfare advocates Kangaroos Alive, Mick McIntyre, called it “a big victory” for the “inhumane” industry and said they hoped other big sporting brands such as Adidas and Nike followed.

“Big business is waking up to what consumers want,” he said. “We don’t need to kill a national icon to make soccer boots and we shouldn’t be doing this in the 21st century.”

“The real narrative is a national icon is being barbarically slaughtered overnight and their babies are discarded to make pet food, shoes and bags. Europeans are waking up to it. Americans are waking up”.

But many in the kangaroo product industry believe that major manufacturing companies are simply buckling under the pressure of a highly organised misinformation campaign.

Puma’s decision comes almost two decades after former English soccer star David Beckham took a stand against Adidas’s use of kangaroo leather in the Predator soccer boots he used, ditching the model. Beckham had faced intense pressure from animal rights activists over his use of the boots.

Industry leaders point out that only a small percentage of Australia’s 40 million kangaroos are commercially harvested and say the industry – which employs more than 3000 people – takes animal welfare very seriously.

Mr Packer said the activists’ claims had been made since the 1970s and it was sad to see all the good work done through science-based state and territory management plans, for the sustainable harvest of kangaroos, ignored.

Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia executive officer Dennis King described the recent move in the US states of Connecticut and Oregon to consider legislation prohibiting the sale of kangaroo products as “driven by emotive misinformation by animal activist groups targeting US politicians”.

The Australian government has also said it is working to “dispel the myth” that kangaroo harvesting is a threat to the species.

“The government is tackling misconceptions that harvesting of kangaroos in Australia is inhumane, noting the importance of sustainable, humane management of kangaroos to prevent ecosystem damage and crop loss,” a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry said.

“Of the 60 species of kangaroo and wallaby in Australia, only seven are approved for commercial harvest. These species are not listed as threatened or rare under Australian environmental legislation.

Australian suppliers of the kangaroo leather to Puma say they will continue supplying the company for other products.

“It’s not necessarily a stand against kangaroo leather, but a move towards textile and synthetic,” Sydney-based leather maker Micaela Topper said.