Viva!’s campaign against kangaroo skin follows their recent expose of the barbaric kangaroo slaughter which caused huge public outcry and virtually ended the sale of kangaroo meat in Britain. Viva! are now turning their attention to the kangaroo leather industry which shares equal responsibility for this sickening massacre. Most kangaroo skins are exported to Europe and the USA to make football boots.

Seven million kangaroos and their babies are to be brutally slaughtered this year in Australia - the largest wildlife massacre in the world! Adult kangaroos are shot, often hit in the throat or neck, and dragged to the trucks struggling and still conscious. Some are still alive when their leg is sliced open and they are hauled up onto the truck by a large hook through the gash. Their throat is then slit and they bleed to death. Young joeys who are still inside their mother’s pouch suffer an equally barbaric death. They are pulled from the pouch and stamped on, clubbed to death or simply left to die of starvation - worthless by-products of a callous but lucrative industry.

The kangaroo industry’s justification for the slaughter is scientifically invalid. It claims that kangaroos are major wheat crop pests, yet a four-year study of grey kangaroos in Western Australia found that 95 per cent of wheat crops are never visited by kangaroos. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), who carried out the research, found that they have virtually no impact on crops and even recommended that farmers encourage natural bush land on their property to help keep kangaroos fed.

Says Viva! director Juliet Gellatley, “Kangaroo leather means an agonising death for millions of kangaroos and joeys every year. We are calling on all British football players to help end this butchery and boycott kangaroo leather boots.”

For more information contact Juliet Gellatley on tel: 01273 777688. Viva!’s report and video footage of kangaroo killing can be viewed on-line at: www.savethekangaroo.com.