While perusing MLS news on google, I saw this item Humane Society Pressures Schwarzenegger with Kangaroo Campaign. According to the article, the Humane Society is lobbying the Governator to maintain the states' ban on products made with kangaroo skins, such as soccer cleats.
California is one of only two states (the other is) with a ban on kangaroo products, but a recent bill to overturn the ban hopped its way through the state legislature and is headed to Arnold for a signature. The kangaroo product ban was signed into law in 1970 by Ronald Reagan.
According to the article, Major League Soccer is one of the organization that supports the repeal of the ban on kangaroo products.
I'm not sure where I stand on the whole kangaroo-skin trade. I mean, are kangaroos just the Austrailian equivalent of cows? Are they overpopulated like deer in the U.S.?
Here's what the president of the human Society Michael Markarian said in a LA Times column about the killing of kangaroos:
About 7 million kangaroos are brutally killed each year in Australia for pet food and leather, and 3 million of their hides are exported to supply the global commercial trade. The killing itself is callous and inhumane. Many kangaroos are spotlighted from trucks and shot at night in the outback, where there is scant scrutiny or regulation. When female kangaroos with joeys are killed, the youngsters are pulled from their mothers' pouches and stomped on, clubbed, decapitated or left for the scavengers.
Sounds like a Michael Vick block party.
One kangaroo who won't take the news lying down:
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