Thread by @WholePicture_

#Thread about #Kangaroos #Australia #animals #USA #trade #AnimalsMatterAF #Shoes #Nike #fashionstyle :

California banned the import of kangaroo products in 1971. Now politicians from both camps want to extend the ban to the whole of the USA.

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However, the commercially hunted kangaroos are not critically endangered species.
However, it is difficult to monitor the ban. The corresponding police unit is already fully occupied with monitoring the illegal trade in ivory and other exotic animals.

Eating kangaroo meat is certainly not for everyone, and the meat is an absolute niche product.

According to the new legislative proposals, anyone who imports kangaroo meat or leather goods into the USA faces jail sentences and fines.

The animal rights activists behind the initiative point out that two million kangaroos are killed annually in Australia. This is ten times as many animals as when seals were slaughtered in Canada - and it is even more bloody, they claim.

Nike explains that they only use leather from kangaroos that have come from state-controlled hunting. The competitor Puma aims to stop processing the skin of exotic animals by 2025.

And the fashion company Versace has not used kangaroo fur for its products since 2019.

There are around 48 different species of kangaroo in Australia, but only a handful are allowed to be hunted. The number of kangaroos had increased sharply until the big bushfires a year ago, to around 45 million.

Mathematically, there were two kangaroos for every inhabitant of Australia. It is therefore not an endangered species - on the contrary. If humans do not control the population, it will multiply enormously in years with a lot of grass growth.

In a dry year you can see many emaciated kangaroos that dispute water and food for other animals.
For this reason, the state releases quotas for hunting every year. However, the hunters must regularly prove their shooting skills.

You are only allowed to kill the animals in the wild with a headshot, which is considered a "humane" method of killing. And the slaughterhouses are only allowed to process such animals, otherwise they have to expect fines.

The small kangaroo industry in Australia employs 3,000 people and has an annual turnover of 200 million dollars, a large part of which is exported to Europe and the USA.

In the English newspaper “The Guardian”, a cook with Aboriginal roots recently stated that the commercial kangaroo industry was opening up the possibility of economic self-determination for the indigenous people.

If you were to explain the whole thing to American Indians, they would understand you, says another Aborigine. The industry would not mind if the import ban only applied to threatened kangaroo species.