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In Australia, the kangaroo industry may face serious challenges as Oregon in the US is about to pass a law banning the import of kangaroo products. This is the headquarters of equipment manufacturer Nike, which uses kangaroo leather to make its football boots.
With our correspondent in Sydney, Gregory Plesse
The kangaroo is Australia’s animal emblem, but also the source of an industry which brings in 130 million euros every year, but which could be harmed by an import ban currently under consideration in Oregon.
In Australia, kangaroos are hunted by professionals whose activity is regulated, but very inadequately, according to animal MP Mark Pearson, who remembers that when hunters kill adult females, they also kill their babies. .
The latter also kills many female carriers of babies, indirect victims of this activity.
Nike does not tell France, Europe or the world that 500,000 baby kangaroos are killed every year with rifle butts and that this is the direct consequence of their activity.
The European Union, which is by far the largest importer of kangaroo meat and leather, recently opposed a ban on kangaroo meat imports.
The news is of little comfort to Dennis King, chief executive of the Kangaroo Industry Association, who says he is a victim of misinformation. ” We respect the lives of the animals we slaughter, in accordance with the rules set by the government, he said. And we use all parts of the animal. No one gets killed just for making football boots. »
At least the kangaroo is not an endangered species. There would be more than 40 million across Australia. Hunters kill one to two million a year to sustain a sector that employs 3,000 people.
► To read again: Australia officially recognizes the koala as an endangered species
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